CBO’s Health Team

CBO’s Health Team
Because CBO believes that its estimating methodology should be as transparent as possible, perhaps our estimating team should be transparent as well. In that spirit, here are the previously anonymous analysts at CBO who deserve a great deal of credit for their fine work analyzing health reform and related legislative proposals (I realize this list has more than 50 names; that’s because some of these people have other responsibilities beyond health reform):

Christi Anthony, David Auerbach, David Austin, Colin Baker, Elizabeth Bass, Jim Baumgardner, Patrick Bernhardt, Tom Bradley, Paul Burnham, Stephanie Cameron, Sheila Campbell, Jodi Capps, Michael Carpenter,Julia Christensen, Mindy Cohen, Anna Cook, Paul Cullinan, Sunita D’Monte, Noelia Duchovny, Sean Dunbar, Philip Ellis, Pete Fontaine, Carol Frost, Mike Gilmore, Matt Goldberg, Heidi Golding, April Grady, Stuart Hagen, Holly Harvey, Jean Hearne, Janet Holtzblatt, Lori Housman, Paul Jacobs, Sarah Jennings, Daniel Kao, Jamease Kowalczyk, Susan Labovich, Julie Lee, Leo Lex, Joyce Manchester, Kate Massey, Noah Meyerson, Alex Minicozzi, Carl Mueller, Carla Murray, Athiphat Muthitacharoen, Keisuke Nakagawa, Kirstin Nelson, Lyle Nelson, Andrea Noda, Ben Page, Allison Percy, Lisa Ramirez-Branum, Lara Robillard, Matt Schmidt, Kurt Seibert, Sven Sinclair, Julie Somers, Robert Stewart, Julie Topoleski, Bruce Vavrichek, David Weiner, Ellen Werble, Chapin White, Rebecca Yip. Source: Director’s Blog » Blog Archive » CBO’s Health Team.

Senator Max Baucus’s Health Care Team

Senator Baucus has given every Democrat on the Finance Committee a different piece of health reform to focus in on. Sources say that some are taking them more seriously than others, and obviously no single senators gets the last word. But the assignments have been a way for Baucus to delegate some of the work and involve all the Democrats on the Finance Committee. This is the list:

• Jay Rockefeller: Medicaid Expansion, Premium Subsidies, Quality Improvements
• Kent Conrad: Comparative Effectiveness, Chronic Care Management
• Jeff Bingaman: Pay-for-Performance, Bundled Payments, IHS
• John Kerry: Heath Information Technology, Exchange, Small Business Tax Credit
• Blanche Lincoln: Small-Group Rating Reforms, Small Business Tax Credit
  Ron Wyden: Tax Exclusion, Non-Group Rating Reform
• Chuck Schumer: Public Plan
• Debbie Stabenow: Employer Pay-or-Play, Medicare Buy-in, HIT
• Maria Cantwell: Long-Term Care Reform, Workforce Issues
• Bill Nelson: Graduate Medical Education, Medicare Part D
• Bob Menendez: Disparities, Individual Requirement
• Tom Carper: Fraud and Abuse, Prevention and Wellness, Transparency

Source:  Ezra Klein (American Prospect).

The Science and Epidemiology of Racism and Health in the United States: An Ecosocial Perspective (Webcast)

Nancy Krieger, M.S., Ph.D., Professor of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health.  Associate Director, Harvard Center for Society and Health and Co-Director, Interdisciplinary Concentration on Women, Gender and Health.

10th Annual William T. Small, Jr. Keynote Lecture: The Science and Epidemiology of Racism and Health in the United States: An Ecosocial Perspective. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health Minority Student Caucus. 29th Annual Minority Health Conference February 29, 2008. Webcast.

Helen W. Haskell keynote: The Patient’s Role in Patient Safety: A Patient and System’s Perspectives

Each Saturday Healthcare Update News Service offers a video presentation by a national expert in health policy and practice. This week we feature the following keynote presentation from the 2007 Quality Colloquium, www.QualityColloquium.com, August 19 – 22, 2007, on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. Helen W. Haskell. The Patient’s Role in Patient Safety: A Patient and System’s Perspectives. Mothers Against Medical Error, Columbia, SC. Video.

Jamie Robinson to step down as Health Affairs editor

James C. Robinson, Ph.D., who became editor-in-chief of Health Affairs last September, has decided to return to the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Kaiser Permanente Distinguished Professorship of Health Economics in the School of Public Health.

Robinson will step down as Health Affairs editor on July 1, 2008. The journal’s founding editor, John K. Iglehart, will lead a national search for a replacement and serve as interim editor should a new editor-in-chief not be identified before Robinson’s departure.

What’s The Ethics Of That?’ A Conversation With Thomas O. Pyle

Donald M. Berwick and Madge Kaplan. What’s The Ethics Of That?’ A Conversation With Thomas O. Pyle. Health Affairs, January/February 2008; 27(1): 143-150. Abstract

Thomas O. Pyle served in the top echelons of the Harvard Community Health Plan (HCHP) for nineteen years. In that time, HCHP became the largest health maintenance organization (HMO) in New England, and its reputation for innovation and entrepreneurship rose to the top ranks of the industry. HCHP pioneered the automated medical record, nurse practitioners, quality measurement, and sophisticated disease management. In this interview, Berwick and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Madge Kaplan explore Pyle’s background, his interpretation of HCHP’s evolution and eventual transition to a much different organization, and his recommendations for the future. At the time of this interview, Tom was suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer, from which he died ten weeks later, 18 July 2007.

Robert M. Ball Is Dead at 93; Helped Design Medicare

Robert M. Ball, the commissioner of Social Security in the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations, an architect of Medicare and an influential opponent of privatizing Social Security, has died. He began his career in the Social Security Administration in 1939 and after rising through the ranks, was appointed commissioner in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy.  As commissioner, he played significant roles in creating and winning enactment of Medicare, which provides health insurance to people 65 and over, and the Social Security disability program. In recent years, he had been one of the strongest defenders of Social Security, arguing that the system was not facing financial disaster and that privatization would leave it underfunded. NYT obituary.

Regina Herzlinger Awarded Consumers for Health Care Choices Pioneer in Health Economics Award for 2007

Professor Regina Herzlinger of the Harvard Business School won the Consumers for Health Care Choices Pioneer in Health Economics Award for 2007.

She is the author or editor of three books that laid out the intellectual foundation for the consumer empowerment movement: Market-Driven Health Care (1996); Consumer-Driven Health Care (2004); and Who Killed Health Care? (2007).

She is a frequent lecturer on all aspects of health care reform, and serves on the Boards of various innovative health care companies. Due to recent surgery Regina Herzlinger was not able to accept this award in person, but she called in her remarks that are available in audio format. Audio of her acceptance.

A Dialogue on Defining the Issue: the Uninsured – Access, Cost and Quality Issues: Implications for State & National Health Reform

Each Saturday Healthcare Update News Service offers a video presentation by a national expert in health policy and practice. This week we feature the following keynote presentation from the 2007 Congress for the Un and Under Insured, www.UninsuredCongress.com, December 9 – 12, 2007 in Washington, DC. Video.

Henry J. Aaron, PhD. Senior Fellow, Economic Studies and The Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Chair, Brookings Institution, Chairman, National Academy of Social Insurance, Washington, DC

Stuart M. Butler, PhD. Vice President, Domestic and Economic Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation, Author, Enterprise Zones: Greenlining the Inner Cities, Privatizing Federal Spending, and Out of the Poverty Trap, Washington, DC

Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic

Each Saturday Healthcare Update News Service offers a video presentation by a national expert in health policy and practice. This week we feature the following keynote presentation from the 2007 Emergency Management Summit, www.EmergencyManagementSummit.com, March 4-6, 2007 in New Orleans, LA. Marc K. Siegel, MD, Associate Professor, New York University School of Medicine, Fellow, Master Scholars Society, New York University, Author, Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic, New York, NY. Video