Health care reform isn't over. In fact, it's just getting started.

Legislators in Sacramento are making critical - in some cases controversial - decisions about how to build out federal health care legislation. But developing a medical system that keeps us healthy without making us poor isn't truly within the control of politicians in Sacramento or Washington, D.C.

Getting a better bang for our buck depends mostly on us.

Southern Californians have varying degrees of enthusiasm for the package of reforms passed by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress. But they all agree that they would not like to see their loved ones unnecessarily readmitted to the hospital. Federal reform changes how hospitals are compensated for certain admissions, but government policy alone will not change society.

Preventing costly and demoralizing readmissions depends mainly on health professionals and patients working together. Southern California-based HealthCare Partners runs a program in which clinicians, nurses, and social workers interact with high-risk patients following their discharge from hospitals to reduce unnecessary and expensive follow-up hospital stays and emergency department visits. This effort has succeeded in reducing readmission of these high-risk patients by 18 percent, savings millions of dollars.

Many people in California are intensely focused on whether health care reform should be repealed or overturned as unconstitutional.

But both of these warring sides should also carve out a significant chunk of their attention to learn about the quality of care provided at their local hospitals.

Both Medicare Hospital Compare and CalHospitalCompare.org give consumers better information as they search for the highest quality of care for themselves and their loved ones. Consumer engagement is a critical aspect of getting better value for medical spending.

Politicians in Sacramento are considering levying a tax on sweetened beverages, and Los Angeles has an ordinance banning the construction of new fast food restaurants in certain areas of town. But reducing the spiraling medical costs associated with obesity also has to be driven by Californians making better decisions even in areas where their options are not ideal. If we are going to make progress on bringing down the spiraling cost of medical care, we have to use both community action and individual initiative.

Over the past year, we participated in a nonpartisan, nonpolitical project called The California Task Force on Affordable Care. This group of health care directors and CEOs from the hospital, physician, business, and insurance and consumer sectors worked together to look at ways to improve the value we as Californians get for our health care spending. The result of this project is a set of recommendations that, if properly implemented, will save Californians $300 billion over the next decade.

Federal reform contained more cost-controlling elements than most people recognize. But we cannot afford to wait for federal health care reform to be either expanded or repealed. Continuing to build an affordable universal health care system is a necessity highlighted by the families that continue to go bankrupt from medical expenses, the businesses that keep shifting costs to their workers, and the steep cuts proposed to state health care programs. These trends will continue until we build an affordable, universal health care system that delivers high-quality care to all Californians. And, even in the wake of the passage of health care reform, this is a project that continues to depend mainly on us.