An Unexpected Champion of Early Education: Former Sen. Bill Frist

You might not immediately associate former Sen. Bill Frist -- the former Republican majority leader and transplant surgeon -- with calls for more spending on high-quality childcare and early education opportunities. But at a forum on health policy earlier this month, his dedication to these issues was unmistakable.

"We have to start early to make sure that all children have high-quality childcare," Frist said. "A lot of time in Washington it gets bogged down in partisan rhetoric. But we got to flat out go to the science, go to the data and cut through to that fact."

He continued: "That's one area that will require a commitment of new resources, because the science is fairly new, the data is fairly new and people have not given it sufficient attention in the past."

His comments came at a briefing sponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation's Commission to Build a Healthier America has recently released a set of recommendations for health reform. Providing strong early childhood education is a key component, as shown in the slide below that was part of Frist's presentation:

Frist ended his remarks by urging people to spend some time with the commission's health-education calcuator, which shows the tight association between education and health. it shows that if states can increase the education level of their residents, people's health will improve and death rates will fall. "Maybe it will stimulate you to maybe do the things I did, " he said, "like go ahead and focus on education for a while."