The future of U.S. health care

Event Details

‘Obamacare,’ Medicare Payment Policy, and the Elusive Quest for Better Incentive Alignment

RICK MAYES is associate professor in the department of political science, and co-director of the "Healthcare & Society" major, at the University of Richmond.  Mayes received his Ph.D. from UVa in 2000 and was a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral trainee at U.C. Berkeley’s School of Public Health from 2000 to 2002.  From 1992-1993, he worked on Medicaid policy in the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs for George H.W. Bush and thereafter on health insurance and Medicare policy at the AARP during the health care reform effort of 1993-94.  Mayes is author of Universal Coverage: The Elusive Quest for National Health Insurance, and co-author of Medicare Prospective Payment and the Shaping of U.S. Health Careand Medicating Children: ADHD and Pediatric Mental Health.

Mayes’ presentation will focus on disconcerting long-term health care cost trends and related major developments facing health care providers, payers and patients. Particular attention will be devoted to how and why Medicare payment policy has played such an influential political and financial role in the structure of modern medicine. The talk will conclude with an analysis of how both the ACA and Medicare's governance are accelerating the reshaping of health care organization, finance and delivery for all Americans (not just senior citizens).

RAY SCHEPPACH, Senior Fellow for Economic Policy at the Miller Center, will offer comments.

This colloquium is part of the Fall 2013 Miller Center Colloquium series, Historical Perspectives on the Health Care Crisis, organized by GUIAN MCKEE, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Miller Center.   Support for the series comes from the Claude Moore Foundation.