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Session 10: Prominent Health Care Reform Proposals
This session compares prominent proposals and explores how the proposals would affect consumers, employers, and workers. Democrats have embraced a system of individual and employermandated health coverage, while Republicans call for various changes in tax law to cover the uninsured. Whichever idea prevails, employers and consumers will likely be in for a big change.
Sponsor: NABE Health Economics Roundtable
Presentations
Speakers
Devon Herrick
National Center for Policy Analysis and
Health Economics Roundtable
Devon Herrick, Ph. D., concentrates on health care issues, such as Internet-based medicine, health insurance and the uninsured, as well as pharmaceutical drug issues. Other areas which Dr. Herrick focuses on include managed care, patient empowerment, medical privacy and technology-related issues.
Dr. Herrick has been responsible for the NCPA's computer and information services, as well as oversight of the design and maintenance of the NCPA's award-winning Web site - Idea House. He has training in financial analysis and health economics, and has conducted several major research projects for the NCPA, having published several research studies and papers on health policy. Herrick is a sought-after speaker on health policy issues.
Prior to joining the NCPA, Dr. Herrick was a research assistant at the Bruton Center for Development Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. The Bruton Center integrates geographic information systems, spatial analysis, and exploratory data analysis in the social sciences, applying research on trends, forces, and public policy. In addition, he spent six years working in health care accounting and financial management for a Dallas-area health care system.
Dr. Herrick received a Ph.D. in Political Economy and a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Dallas with a concentration in economic development. Dr. Herrick's dissertation research examined patient empowerment through empirical analysis of the Internet and disease advocacy.
He also holds an MBA with a concentration in finance from Oklahoma City University and an MBA from Amber University, as well as a BS in accounting from the University of Central Oklahoma.
Michael Cannon
Cato Institute
Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies. Previously, he served as a domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee under Chairman Larry E. Craig, where he advised the Senate leadership on health, education, labor, welfare, and the Second Amendment. Cannon has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN, Fox News Channel, and NPR. His articles have been featured in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics. Cannon is coauthor of Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It. He holds a bachelor's degree in American government (B.A.) from the University of Virginia, and master’s degrees in economics (M.A.) and law & economics (J.M.) from George Mason University.
Len Nichols
New America Foundation
Len Nichols, a highly respected healthcare economist, directs the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation, which aims to expand health insurance coverage to all Americans while reining in costs and improving the efficiency of the overall health care system. Before joining New America, Dr. Nichols was the Vice President of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute, and the Senior Advisor for Health Policy at the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton reform efforts of 1993-94. He has testified frequently before Congress and state legislators and has published widely in a variety of health related journals.
Previously, Dr. Nichols was Chair of the Economics Department at Wellesley College, where he taught for 10 years. He also served as a member of the Competitive Pricing Advisory Commission (CPAC) and the 2001 Technical Review Panel for the Medicare Trustees Reports. He was on the advisory panel to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Covering America project and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Pan American Health Organization. Dr. Nichols received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois.
Jeff Lemieux
America's Health Insurance Plans
Jeff Lemieux is the Senior Vice President directing AHIP's new Center for Policy and Research. Prior to joining AHIP, Lemieux was Executive Director of Centrists.Org, a small think tank dedicated to pursuing bipartisan policy solutions. Before founding Centrists.Org in 2003, Lemieux worked as a senior economist for the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). At PPI, he was responsible for studies of overall economy including federal budget, tax, and entitlement issues, as well as health care. In 1998 and 1999, Lemieux served as the staff economist for the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, which was co-chaired by Senator John Breaux and Congressman Bill Thomas. Before joining the Commission, from 1992 to 1998, Lemieux was with the Congressional Budget Office, where he estimated the cost of national health reform plans and, later, the impact of Medicare reforms enacted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and other laws.
An economist specializing in health care and public finance, Jeff is the author of centrist proposals for health coverage, Medicare reform, and balanced budgets, and creator of long-term projections of entitlement spending and federal budgets used by Congress and the policymaking community. He has testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and other committees in Congress on Medicare reform, tax-based proposals to expand access to health coverage, chronic care management, and other topics.
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