Democratic plans for health care reform do not require widespread reporting of preventable medical errors.

They do, however, take on the more limited issue of hospital acquired infections. The House bill requires hospitals to report only hospital acquired infections, not all medical errors. The Senate bill does not require public reporting but would penalize hospitals with the highest rates of hospital acquired infection.

Hearst newspapers analyzed the bills as part of their ongoing investigation, " Dead by Mistake ." Their reporting concluded that up to 200,000 people per year die from medical errors and infections in the United States.

"The bills drafted in five House and Senate committees do contain sections on health care quality and patient safety," the Hearst report said. "But despite a claim in one committee"s press release that its bill 'fixes' the problem of medical errors, most of the language focuses on research that"s already under way."

We rated Promise No. 62, Require providers to report measures of health care costs and quality , as In the Works, mostly on the basis of the requirements for hospitals to report on hospital acquired infections.

But there are many more types of medical errors than merely hospital acquired infections, and health care reform imposes no new reporting requirements on those errors. For this promise, the health care bills fall short of President Barack Obama's promise. So we rate this promise Stalled.