Posted by CHPRE Staff
Latest News
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
March 18, 2010
Written by Shuchita Madan
On March 16, 2010, Len M. Nichols testified(Len M. Nichols Testimony for Massachusetts Officials March 2010) on the first day of a set of hearings organized by the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy to focus on what Massachusetts — and the nation — can do about health care cost growth. The attendees included Governor Deval Patrick , Attorney General Martha Coakley, Senate President Therese Murray, Secretary JudyAnn Bigby, DHCFP Commissioner David Morales, and many more officials and leaders in Massachusetts politics and health care. Len M. Nichols highlighted the economic consequences for families, employers, providers, and governments, if health care expenditures continue rising like they have for so long without reforms.
Posted by CHPRE Staff
Testimony
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
Introduction:
Commissioner Morales and Other Distinguished Guests, thank you for inviting my testimony today on the urgency of finding policy solutions to our health care cost problems at the local, state and national levels. My name is Len M. Nichols. I am a health economist, a Professor of Health Policy, and the Director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, the southernmost Commonwealth of the United States. I am honored to offer this testimony today, not least because I lived and voted in Massachusetts for eleven years when I began my career teaching in and eventually chairing the Economics Department at Wellesley College. My son was born at the Brigham in 1987, so I have a far deeper connection to Massachusetts than you could possibly know. Massachusetts has always been a beacon to our nation, from before it was a nation right up until and including this morning. Our political leaders are engaged once again in a great national debate about whether to use government’s power to set new rules and incentives so that our health care system could serve all our citizens in an economically sustainable manner, or not. And once again, all eyes are on Massachusetts. You have led the way in implementing law and policy that has reduced the percentage of your population without health insurance to a level the rest of our country envies. Once again you have helped your fellow Americans see what is possible, and in many important ways, the health reform legislation that the Congress will finally vote on in the coming days and weeks is patterned after your own. But just as the fate of national reform hangs in the balance, you have much unfinished business with your policy choices as well. The common issue that vexes Massachusetts’ and national political, business, health system and thought leaders is what to do about health care costs. This issue is perhaps the primary conundrum of the national debate, and of course you already know that if you fail to address it adequately, your own stellar coverage gains will come undone, and your own middle class will find access to high quality care increasingly out of reach, as is the case in the rest of the country. This is and would be a failure of leadership of a very high order. So what is to be done? There is no shortage of advice on this score, and you will hear and read more than your share of the very best kind this week and afterward I am sure. I know how smart and well-informed the people are who live nearby and want to help you make the choices that are best for Massachusetts. My task this morning is to set the context for why you must act, why being paralyzed by a lack of complete certainty, by sowed confusion or by partisan demagoguery is dangerous for Massachusetts and for our country.
“Why Doing Nothing is Not an Option,” Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, March 16, 2010.
Click here to view the testimony.
Posted by CHPRE Staff
Presentations
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
“Health Reform 2010: Where are we and where are we headed?,” This presentation took place on the following dates:
Grantmakers in Health, March 10, 2010;
North Carolina Hospital Association, February 19, 2010;
Texas Hospital Association, February 17, 2010;
American Hospital Association Board of Directors, February 1, 2010;
Americas Health Insurance Plans Executive Council, February 4, 2010;
American Medical Association Leadership Council, January 7, 2010.
