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Past Event

Our Looming Medical Cost Catastrophe: What’s to be Done?

Uncontrolled medical spending has risen to the top of the national agenda and become a fiercely-contested election year issue. This conference, co-sponsored by Brookings and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, will consider why past efforts to contain costs have failed and how America might achieve cost-sensitive health care reform in the future. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle will offer opening remarks on how to achieve change in today’s political climate. Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag, will deliver the luncheon address. The conference panelists, who include many of the nation’s top experts on health policy, come from a variety of disciplines and political perspectives. The speakers will take audience questions.

At the end of this year, The Brookings Institution Press will publish a volume, edited by Gregg Bloche and Leslie Meltzer, entitled Beyond Learned Helplessness: Solving America’s Health Care Cost Conundrum. The volume will contain contributions from the conference speakers and from others.

Agenda

Welcome and Introduction

M

M. Gregg Bloche, M.D.

Visiting Fellow, the Brookings Institution; Professor of Law, Georgetown University; Adjunct Professor, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

L

Leslie Meltzer

Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics and Health Policy, Georgetown University Law Center; Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

Vehicles for Health Reform: How to Get Big Change in Today's Political Climate

The History of Health Care Cost Containment: Past Failures and Lessons Learned

Panel I: Social Stewardship versus Fidelity to Patients? Ethical and Legal Dilemmas

D

Daniel Wikler

Professor of Population Ethics, Harvard University School of Public Health

L

Leslie Meltzer

Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics and Health Policy, Georgetown University Law Center; Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

W

William Sage

Vice Provost for Health Affairs and Professor of Law, University of Texas

Health Care Costs, Quality, and the Federal Budget

Panel II: Seeking Value and Setting Limits

D

David Hyman

Professor of Law and Medicine, University of Illinois

B

Bradley Herring

Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Panel II: Moderator

Jason Furman

Former Brookings Expert

Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy - Harvard University

Nonresident Senior Fellow - Peterson Institute for International Economics

Panel III: “Bending the Curve”: Hard Choices and Hidden Opportunities

M

M. Gregg Bloche, M.D.

Visiting Fellow, the Brookings Institution; Professor of Law, Georgetown University; Adjunct Professor, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

J

Jeanne Lambrew

Associate Professor, University of Texas School of Public Affairs

Panel III: Moderator

P

Patrick Healy

Senior Research Assistant, The Brookings Institution

More Information

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