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.