Are there any solutions to stemming the growth in healthcare costs? That’s the question facing panelists at out at our next breakfast forum on Thursday, April 28 at the Multnomah Athletic Club.
Our expert panel of lawmakers, consumer advocates and healthcare industry representatives will explore the causes of rising costs and debate potential solutions ranging from transparency and accountability to new models of payment and care delivery.
You’ll hear from:
- Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward (D-Beaverton), a family physician at OHSU who represents District 17 in the Oregon Legislature, where she serves on the Senate Health Care Committee, the Joint Ways and Means Committee and its Subcommittee on Human Services.
- Lynn Quincy, who directs the Health Care Value Hub, a project of Consumers Union, which is the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. The Hub is dedicated to monitoring, translating and disseminating evidence, as well as connecting advocates, researchers and policymakers together to further conversations and action around the cost and value of healthcare.
- K. John McConnell, PhD, a health economist and director of the Center for Health Systems Effectiveness at Oregon Health & Science University. His work includes an ongoing study of the impacts of Oregon’s transition to Coordinated Care Organizations, a study that includes the creation of comparison groups using Oregon’s commercially insured claims data and Medicaid claims from the state of Colorado.
- Dr. Tom Culhane, chief medical officer of ATRIO Health Plans, and a family medicine physician who’s been in practice for more than 20 years.
- Lynne Saxton, director of the Oregon Health Authority,
Jesse O’Brien, policy director for the OSPIRG Foundation, will be our moderator.
During the 2015 legislative session, Steiner Hayward advanced a bill that would have required hospitals to give real-time information about healthcare costs to consumers and demanded that hospitals post their prices by insurance type for common procedures.
At that time, she told The Lund Report, “Both as a physician and as a consumer of healthcare services, I have no idea of what healthcare costs.”
However, the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems and health insurers swayed legislators, pushing their own bill, Senate Bill 900, which called upon the Oregon Health Authority to use the all-payer, all-claims database to list the median prices at hospitals and hospital clinics for the 50 most common inpatient procedures and 100 most common outpatient procedures. Ultimately, they prevailed with their legislation passing both chambers.
Nevertheless, the debate over rising healthcare costs remains unabated. Learn more by registering today for our interactive forum and bring your questions for our panelists. If your organization is interested in supporting this breakfast forum, please contact Diane Lund-Muzikant.
This event is sponsored by Oregon Health Forum in collaboration with OSPIRG. Oregon Health Forum is the educational arm of The Lund Report and collaborates with other nonprofit organizations to sponsor monthly breakfast forums.
Diane can be reached at [email protected].
