June 6, 2007 | 3:46 p.m

Hillary Clinton introduced legislation in the Senate today to improve the quality of health care, a precursor to the proposal she is expected to make in the coming weeks as part of her slow roll-out of a universal health care plan.

Today's proposal again emphasizes Clinton's focus on the cost of health care, which, politically speaking, has the potential to be at least as important in a general election than the issue of the 45 million or so Americans without insurance. (She is expected to call for universal health care coverage in a subsequent, separate roll-out.)

"We spend more than any other nation in the world on health care, but we have worse results and costs continue to skyrocket for families and employers," she said in a statement released this afternoon by her senate office.

The proposed new legislation would provide Medicare data to private organizations who could then theoretically better analyze the quality and cost of the public system. Consumer groups, labor groups and insurance providers would have the ability to request reports from the organizations, which would be made public.