Symposium on Sustainable U.S. Health Spending:  Public Sector Imperative, Private Sector Urgency
 
With Funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Altarum Center for Sustainable Health Spending Presents

Symposium on Sustainable U.S. Health Spending: Public Sector Imperative, Private Sector Urgency

Tuesday, July 30, 2013
8:30 am - 12:45 pm

Précis

The record run of historically slow growth in national health expenditures has not made unsustainable health spending suddenly sustainable. In previous research, and via a successful RWJF-funded 2012 symposium, we have quantified sustainable health spending to better understand its underlying dynamics. With the Affordable Care Act approaching full implementation it is especially timely to further analyze cost factors, distinguishing private and public sector growth trajectories.

This half-day symposium will build on this research base to explicitly connect health spending growth to the long-run fiscal crisis. It will address questions such as:
  • What do the most recent data show for spending growth?

  • What has been the effect of the recession and tepid recovery, and what does this portend for future growth?

  • What are the forces that are changing (structurally rather than cyclically) health care delivery by private providers?

  • How will pressures to hold down public spending impact the private sector?

Presenters include:
  • David Cutler, PhD, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics, Harvard University

  • Ceci Connolly, Managing Director of the Health Research Institute, PwC

  • Thomas E. Getzen, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Risk, Insurance & Health Mgmt, Temple Univ

  • John Holahan, PhD, Institute Fellow, Health Policy Center, Urban Institute

  • Joanne Kenen, Health Editor, POLITICO

  • Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

  • Charles Roehrig, PhD, Vice President and Institute Fellow, Altarum's Center for Sustainable Health Spending

  • Uwe E. Reinhardt, PhD, James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

  • Gene Steuerle, PhD, Richard B. Fisher Chair at the Urban Institute

  • David Walker, Founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative (CAI)

  • Chapin White, PhD, Senior Researcher, Center for Studying Health System Change

  • Stephen Zuckerman, PhD, Health Policy Center of the Urban Institute