Party planners in Denver and Minneapolis aren't the only people busy preparing for the upcoming political conventions. The Democratic Platform Drafting Committee has been hard at work too.

On Saturday, the Democratic Party's 186-member platform committee released a draft of the party's convention platform. And we were pleased to see health care—cost, coverage, and quality—at the heart of the agenda.

So here is our take on a couple of interesting excerpts. The document reads:

We believe that covering all is not just a moral imperative, but is necessary to making our health system workable and affordable.

Democrats seem committed to making sure every American has quality health coverage that they can afford. That's good. They also seem to understand that covering the uninsured is the only way we are going to make our system more efficient for all Americans. That's great.

The platform goes on to discuss:

[A]ggressive efforts to cut costs and eliminate waste...These efforts include driving adoption of state-of-the-art health information technology systems, privacy-protected electronic medical records, reimbursement incentives and an independent organization that reviews drugs, devices, and procedures to ensure that people get the right care at the right time.

Our translation: we must use health information technology to link more information on what works and what doesn't work in our health system to smart incentives for patients and providers.

So kudos to the Ds for linking cost, coverage, and quality, (we are pretty keen on that here at the NHD blog, in case you haven't heard), and recognizing that health reform is a shared responsibility, "between employers, workers, insurers, providers and government." We look forward to the Republican platform (check out their interactive platform forum here).

However, as we approach one of the most historic elections in our nation's history there aren't too many things we can say with certainty. But for now, I can think of two. 1) The French are likely still crying after their loss to the U.S. in the men's 4x100 Freestyle Relay at the Olympics, 2) Regardless of who moves into the Oval Office in January, we will need bipartisan leadership and sound policy to ensure every American has quality, affordable, health coverage. Our nation cannot afford to wait any longer.