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. Gregg Bloche, M.D.
Visiting Fellow, the Brookings Institution; Professor of Law, Georgetown University; Adjunct Professor, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
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
Timothy Jost
Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University
Panel I: Social Stewardship versus Fidelity to Patients? Ethical and Legal Dilemmas
Daniel Wikler
Professor of Population Ethics, Harvard University School of Public Health
Leslie Meltzer
Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics and Health Policy, Georgetown University Law Center; Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
William Sage
Vice Provost for Health Affairs and Professor of Law, University of Texas
Health Care Costs, Quality, and the Federal Budget
Dr. Peter Orszag
Director, Congressional Budget Office
Panel II: Seeking Value and Setting Limits
Jonathan Skinner
Dartmouth College
Dana Goldman
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Economic Studies, USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy
Richard Epstein
Professor of Law, University of Chicago
David Hyman
Professor of Law and Medicine, University of Illinois
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
Mark Hall
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Economic Studies, USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy
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
Jeanne Lambrew
Associate Professor, University of Texas School of Public Affairs
Panel III: Moderator
Patrick Healy
Senior Research Assistant, The Brookings Institution
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