"While a range of public policies have helped individuals with chronic illness, it is important to design and implement new public policies or explore promising approaches to further promote living well with chronic illnesses," Living Well with Chronic Illness: A Call for Public Action, Institute of Medicine (1/31/12)

"A system designed (and reimbursed) to take care of acute care needs on an episode of illness basis is not well-structured to provide for the chronic care needs of an aging population. And we have not created a framework that allows well-thought out decisions to be made balancing the benefits of new technology with its costs," Making Medicare Sustainable, New America Foundation's Health Policy Program (3/19/09)

"There is a gap between the care provided to persons with chronic illness and the optimal care that medicine can provide. Physicians innately desire that all patients receive the best of care, but physicians are constrained by a lack of resources and by our health system's current focus on acute illness," Michael O'Dell, M.D., M.S.H.A., F.A.A.F.P., Associate Chief Medical Officer, Truman Medical Center Lakewood (2007)

"Lowering total health care expenses requires addressing the factors that drive those high-cost cases. For the most part, they involve chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure, whose treatment varies much more than you'd think from doctor to doctor," Peter Orszag, Former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and of the White House Office of Management and Budget (11/3/10)

"An emerging array of studies indicate that payment and care system changes that rely on teams, including nurses and primary care physicians, and engage and support patients and their families have the potential to improve chronic care outcomes and patient experiences and lower annual costs of care for these populations," The Potential Savings from Enhanced Chronic Care Management Policies, Urban Institute Health Policy Center (11/2011)

"It appears that models that models that involve interdisciplinary primary care teams have promise and represent a different approach — by actively involving the patient's own physician and practice team in the chronic care endeavor, rather than simply supplementing the usual care provided by mainstream practitioners," Making Medicare Sustainable, New America Foundation's Health Policy Program (3/19/09)

"Americans are living longer than ever with chronic conditions that were virtually untreatable 50 years ago. With more and more Americans affected by chronic illness, our goal is to design and implement comprehensive programs that meet the full spectrum of individual patient needs, improving their quality of life and enabling them to maintain the highest level of self-sufficiency," Carmella A. Bocchino, Executive Vice President, Clinical Affairs & Strategic Planning, America's Health Insurance Plans (2007)

"Transformation of chronic care design, delivery, policy and finance is the key to having a healthcare delivery system in America that is healthy, affordable and ethical," Larry Minnix, President and CEO, LeadingAge (2007)

"...Additional savings in Medicare and other healthcare accounts by better coordinating care, especially of the chronically ill. A reasonable target would be $300 billion to $400 billion over the next 10 years," Former U.S. Senator Kent Conrad, D-N.D. (10/8/13)

"Use could be reduced from higher quality, e.g., better coordination of care in transitions between hospitals and other settings, including home, or through better ongoing co-management —including patient engagement — of patients with complex and multiple chronic conditions," Len Nichols, Professor of Health Policy and Director, Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics College of Health and Human Services George Mason University (2/29/12)