June 12, 2009 11:57 PM UTC

Rep. Salazar: Come To Junction, President Obama

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel reports:

President Obama has an invitation to visit Rocky Mountain Health Plans in Grand Junction, courtesy of U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo.

Salazar, whose 3rd Congressional District includes Grand Junction, where Rocky Mountain Health Plans is based, noted in his invitation to the president that the health care system in Mesa County has been lauded both in an essay in the New Yorker magazine and the Dartmouth Atlas, a study of health-care systems in the United States.

“I am very supportive of your push for health-care reform, so I would like to extend an invitation to you to view the incredibly innovative facilities firsthand in Grand Junction,” Salazar wrote to Obama. “I feel that the model Grand Junction has provided is a step in the right direction towards health care for the nation. Reform is necessary, and Grand Junction’s model has been tested and proven to be efficient and effective.”

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., visited Rocky Mountain Health Plans last month and introduced the Medicare Transitions Act of 2009, which would encourage other delivery systems to model the patient-transition care pioneered by Rocky Mountain Health Plans.

With health care dominating the news once again in Washington, Grand Junction in the spotlight as a healthcare reform role model is good for everybody–for Obama, for Sen. Bennet who seems to be capitalizing the issue to good effect, and frankly good for GOP-owned Mesa County; getting great press around the country for their innovative and cost-saving approach.

We’d like to see some Junction-area Republicans talk about this, after all you’d think they would want some credit for something being held up as a model of success around the country. Hopefully they still find Mesa County’s model promising now that, you know, Democrats agree…