One of the best new ideas to emerge during the current presidential campaign was Sen. Joe Lieberman's proposal to create an American Center for Cures, a public-private partnership aimed at accelerating progress toward "a new generation of treatments, medicines and vaccinations" to cure fatal and debilitating diseases ranging from cancer and diabetes to Alzheimer's and mental illnesses.

Fortunately, this idea has not expired with the end of Lieberman's presidential campaign. This weekend New Democrat Gov. Tom Vilsack of IA will raise the issue with his fellow governors at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington in an effort help advance the proposal in national policy circles.

The basic concept of the American Center for Cures is simple enough: a "Manhattan Project"-type entity with cabinet-level authority, designed to draw on public and private resources to create multi-disciplinary teams of research scientists, biologists, technologists, chemists, mathematicians and engineers, each focused on a specific, major chronic disease. Unlike existing federal research institutions, the Center for Cures would have the distinctive mission of speeding cures from labs to medical practices and to patients' bedsides and medicine chests. Its success would be measured simply and strictly by cures identified and applied, and by lives saved and revived.

But if the idea is simple, the potential impact of such a Center is revolutionary, since chronic diseases afflict more than 100 million Americans and account for three out of four deaths each year. The brainchild of Chicago New Democrat Lou Weisbach and physician Dr. Rick Boxer, the American Center for Cures reflects the growing consensus in health care policy -- a consensus long promoted by the Progressive Policy Institute -- that our health care system needs to shift from an emphasis on treating the acute symptoms of chronic diseases to a determination to prevent, manage and ultimately cure these diseases. This "paradigm shift" in American health care is an important feature of the health policy proposals being advanced by the two remaining Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards.

As Gov. Vilsack's resolution for the governors sums it up: "The American Center for Cures will be the bridge between the promise of scientific opportunities and the reality of our nation's health needs." It's hard to imagine a bigger, or better idea.

Legislation to establish an American Cures Center will likely be introduced in Congress at some point in the coming weeks. We urge all New Democrats to join Gov. Vilsack and members of Congress in promoting the legislation.

For more information on the proposed American Center for Cures, email Lou Weisbach (lou.weisbach@teamscape.net) or Dr. Rick Boxer (rjbox@aol.com).