To watch the live video webcast or a recording, go to
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/urban-institute-events.
Panelists:
Robert Berenson, M.D., is an Institute fellow at the Urban Institute and an expert in health care policy, particularly Medicare. From 1998 to 2000, he was in charge of Medicare payment policy and private health plan contracting in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He was an assistant director of the Carter White House’s domestic policy staff and a member of the Obama transition team. In 2009, Berenson became a commissioner of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and was named a vice chair in 2010. He cowrote The Managed Care Blues & How to Cure Them and Medicare Payment Policy and the Shaping of U.S. Health Care.
Robert Leibenluft, a partner with the Washington law firm Hogan Lovells, specializes in health and antitrust matters. In 1981, he joined Hogan & Hartson and became a partner in 1989. He practiced health law there until 1996, when he became the assistant director for health care in the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition. As the head of the Health Care Division, Leibenluft supervised the review of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures involving hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers, as well as conduct in the health care and pharmaceutical industries. He rejoined Hogan & Hartson (later Hogan Lovells) in 1998.
Robert Murray is the longest-serving executive director of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC), having held that position for the past 16 years. The HSCRC is the nation’s only all-payer hospital rate-setting system, which affects 47 general acute-care hospitals with revenues exceeding $14 billion annually. Under the all-payer rate structure, Maryland experienced the second-lowest absolute rate of growth in hospital costs of any state in fiscal year 2008. The state has linked 19 evidence-based process measures to payment incentives and linked payment to hospital performance on 49 categories of hospital-acquired complications.
Jordan Rau (moderator) is a correspondent with Kaiser Health News. He has covered government and health care politics and policy in three state capitals, most recently in Sacramento at the Los Angeles Times. Rau covered Albany for Newsday and the New Hampshire State House for the Concord Monitor. His KHN stories have been printed in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and other newspapers, and published on npr.org, msnbc.com, and other online news sites.
Steven Wartman, M.D. and Ph.D., is the president and CEO of the Association of Academic Health Centers. He is a general internist and sociologist who has spent more than 25 years in academic medicine. His interests and publications focus on health care delivery, health policy, medical education, and academic leadership. Previous to becoming AAHC’s president in 2005, Wartman was the executive vice president for academic and health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
Research suggests that hospitals and physician groups, particularly through mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations, are growing ever stronger in their hometowns and beyond. Their increasing power leads to higher payment rates and premiums and could stifle efforts to contain costs and improve quality of care and efficiency.
Why and how are health care providers gaining market power in their negotiations with health plans? What should be done -- or not -- to address imbalances? Is there a role for antitrust policy and enforcement? What lessons are to be gleaned from Maryland’s unique rate-setting system? Are there hidden public benefits, through education and research, that come with bulked-up market strength?
Resources:
At the Urban Institute
2100 M Street N.W., 5th Floor, Washington, D.C.
A video recording will be archived after the event at
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/urban-institute-events.
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