At the launch of the Bipartisan Policy Center, BPC founders Senators Baker, Daschle, Dole, and Mitchell expressed a desire to work together on a specific policy project to exemplify their commitment to bipartisan action. Recognizing the current crisis in American health care as well as the political stalemate in the reform debate, they decided to make health care their signature issue.

The Leaders' Project on the State of American Health Care will, through targeted meetings and workshops involving top practitioners and experts, develop a framework to accelerate constructive discussion and implementation of policy solutions to the nation’s most pressing health care issues. The Leaders’ Project seeks to develop and promote policies that can attract bipartisan support from policymakers and lay the necessary foundation for providing all Americans access to quality, affordable health coverage. The project is guided by some of the country's leading health care experts and will create opportunities for practical dialogue and cooperative solutions on some of the key challenges facing the nation’s health care system.

• Preserve and improve quality and value: demand value and safety throughout the health care system without undermining innovation; achieve greater quality in the delivery of health care.
• Increase the availability and accessibility of affordable coverage options in a reformed insurance market: examine ways to ensure a broad range of affordable insurance policies in a market that is efficient, fair, and stable.
• Promote the individual’s role in health care coverage and cost: explore ways to encourage participation in purchasing of health care through thoughtful and meaningful financial incentives; initiate public health reforms that encourage healthier lifestyles and a commitment to wellness.
• Secure a workable financing mechanism for the nation’s health care system: determine ways to improve the equity and viability of financing mechanisms; explore options to reform the existing tax exclusion for health coverage; increase efficiency through modernization and streamlining of health care administration.