Health care in America is at a crossroads.
What are the major political issues facing health care? How do we reduce the existing significant disparities in timely access to health-care delivery? And can we prevent biomedical advances from “breaking the bank?”
Prominent national experts in health and health-care policy will address those and other important issues affecting the future of medicine at the “Health Care Challenges Facing the Nation” conference from 7:30 a.m.- 4:45 p.m. Oct. 7 at the Eric P. Newman Education Center.
The free conference — sponsored by the Center for Health Policy in the Olin School of Business, the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy in Arts & Sciences and the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. — aims to examine the heart of our nation’s health-care system and the policies that govern it.
“Dramatic progress in medical science is producing unimagined advances in health care,” said conference leader William A. Peck, M.D., the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine and director of the Center for Health Policy. “The best health care in the world can be found in America, but major obstacles must be overcome to ensure all Americans have access to quality health care at a reasonable cost.”
Challenges include ensuring timely access to quality health care regardless of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status; controlling the high and rising costs of health care; and ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of future health-care delivery without sacrificing the pace and promise of medical progress.
For the past year, Peck and Steven S. Smith, Ph.D., director of the Weidenbaum Center and the Kate M. Gregg Professor of Social Sciences, and their staffs have been organizing this conference.
Oct. 7 — the day before the presidential debate at the University — was carefully selected in an attempt to heighten awareness about health-care policy issues.
“The presidential election is an excellent time to consider and set forth the concerns — and possible remedies — for issues surrounding health care,” Peck said. “The quality and financing of health care in America and the world is one of the most important issues for many people, including the two main political parties.”
According to Peck, among the most frequently cited health-care concerns are the high and rising cost of health care and prescription drugs and the large population of uninsured and under-insured Americans.
“Solving these and other problems requires a collaborative effort by policymakers, the private sector, the medical profession and academia to ensure that the United States has policies, laws, regulations and public-private partnerships that encourage and sustain an outstanding health system for all,” Peck said. “Identifying effective solutions is now among the most important and difficult tasks facing our nation.”
To help overcome those obstacles, Peck founded the Center for Health Policy last winter. It aims to identify key issues, then design and conduct projects aimed at understanding and developing policies that will lead to improved health care as well as providing a base for experts from the United States and abroad to undertake relevant projects.
“We are also very interested in the relationship between the medical marketplace and innovation,” Peck said.
“We have to be very careful that we don’t impair the spirit of innovation and invention in medical science.”
Peck added that in addition to undertaking health-policy studies and analyses, the University is also dedicated to sponsoring conferences like “Health Care Challenges Facing the Nation” to help generate open discussion on important health-care issues.
Reservations are required to attend the conference; call 935-5652 or e-mail warren@wc.wustl.edu to reserve a space.
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Conference speakers and participants • Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., president of Medicare and Medicaid and former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, has agreed to speak or to participate in an interactive videoconference. • David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine and former U.S. Surgeon General, will speak on the “Politics of Health Care” from 8:40-9:50 a.m. • Henry J. Aaron, Ph.D., senior fellow of economic studies and the Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Chair at the Brookings Institute, will discuss “Financing Health Care With Limited Resources” from 10:10-11:30 a.m. • Gail Wilensky, Ph.D., senior fellow of Project Hope, will speak on the “Quality of Health Care in the Future” from 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m. • James Kimmey, M.D., president and chief executive officer of the Missouri Foundation of Health, will discuss “Spatial and Racial Disparities in Health Care” from 1-2:15 p.m. • David Cutler, Ph.D., professor of economics and academic dean of Arts & Sciences at Harvard University, will speak on the “Impact of Medical R&D Costs” from 2:30-3:45 p.m. |