Welcome to PBLN's Summit on "Business Leadership and Public Policy: Inventing a More Sustainable Economy"

More than 225 CEOs, executives, government and policy leaders are gathered at the John F. Kennedy Library today for the PBLN Summit. Our aims are to build our network and to make clear our desire to educate business leaders and the public about a new definition of what is "good for business." Our dynamic working groups have asked us to focus on the following three issues - all of which are brought into focus by our first three policy statements which can be found in their entirety here.

Aggressive Health Care Cost Containment. While Congress debates health care reform, we fully embrace the Massachusetts model and are ready to pursue a far more ambitious restructuring of health care. The next frontier of health reform is cost containment – including a proposal to move away from the traditional fee-for-service payment model toward a system of “global payment.”  PBLN supports the recommendations of a recent Commission report that calls for dramatic payment reform. The details will have to be worked through thoughtfully but universal health care is not possible without a major mind-shift about how we contain costs - all without stifling innovation in health care or life sciences or compromising the quality of care. Read more.

Putting a Real Price on Carbon. PBLN supports the “cap-and-trade” system proposed in federal climate change legislation – but there is much more that can be done than is even on the table at the moment. The United States should be leading the world in the aspiration and the action to become a new energy economy, and a leader in the production of the new technologies it will take to get there. And as we unleash market forces by pricing carbon emissions, we must seriously account for the impact on some jobs and small businesses that will result. These imperfections can be anticipated in a market-based solution and as progressives we support pro-active public-private partnerships to help seed new innovative industries, invest in job training, and plan for reducing the impact of higher energy prices on small businesses and households too. Change is hard. And it requires vision - an ability to see a better future that simply does not exist if we stand still. Read more.

Making Innovation the Norm in Education. As the Massachusetts legislature continues to debate the most sweeping education reforms in a generation, PBLN has strongly supported innovation that brings excellence to the classrooms of all students. We strongly support charter schools, and want the opportunities they create to be available to children from the full range of backgrounds and experiences in our communities. We also insist that innovative approaches to education be available system-wide and especially in the most challenged and underperforming schools. We believe these reforms must be comprehensive and must begin right away. We support the Race to the Top Coalition in its aim to get the innovations we need to qualify for federal Race to the Top innovation funding from the US Department of Education. Read more.

These are the positions adopted by the PBLN Board of Directors at the recommendation of our Working Groups. We look forward to learning together in our network about the urgency of these issues and how we as business leaders can help shape positive outcomes.

Member Spotlight

Diane Hessan, President & CEO - Communispace
According to Advertising Age Communispace is one of the fastest growing marketing and technology companies in the country, with a Blue Chip client list that would make a Madison Avenue giant jealous. A pioneer in creating online communities to help marketers deeply engage customers, Diane helped found Communispace in 1999 and hasn't looked back.