Gary Ahlquist - Gary D. Ahlquist is senior vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH). He specializes in strategy and organization development for health plans, insurance companies, and providers. In his 25 years at BAH, Ahlquist has assisted more than 50 hospitals, health systems, academic medical centers, and medical group practices in developing strategies and in their implementation. He has also helped develop strategies for financial services, pharmaceuticals, managed care, medical products, and post-acute-care service corporations. Prior to joining BAH, Ahlquist was employed at the New England Nuclear Corporation (DuPont). Ahlquist, a pioneer in the consumer health movement, has written numerous articles and speaks frequently on the future of the American health system.
Bruce Bodaken - Bruce Bodaken is chairman, president and CEO of Blue Shield of California, a 3.2 million member not-for-profit health plan that serves the commercial, individual and government markets in California.
A native of Iowa, Mr. Bodaken doesn’t fit the typical profile of a health plan CEO. He earned a masters degree and taught philosophy at the college level before embarking on a career in health care.
During Mr. Bodaken’s six-year tenure as CEO, Blue Shield’s membership and revenue have grown significantly. Membership more than doubled and company revenues rose from $3 billion to $8 billion. In recent years, the company won vigorous competitions for two large government contracts, covering nearly 400,000 state employees in CalPERS and half a million members of U.S. military families enrolled in the TRICARE program.
Passionate about his company’s not-for-profit mission, Mr. Bodaken was the first health plan CEO to offer a specific proposal to cover all Californians. His plan for universal coverage based on universal responsibility is a central component of health reform legislation currently under consideration in California. During his tenure, he also transformed Blue Shield of California Foundation into one of the state’s largest healthcare grantmakers, with nearly $30 million in donations in 2005 and 2006. Most of the foundation’s grants support programs to help the uninsured, combat domestic violence, and expand the use of effective healthcare technology.
In addition to his work at Blue Shield, Mr. Bodaken serves on numerous professional and civic boards. He is a member of the board of directors of the California Business Roundtable, America’s Health Insurance Plans, WageWorks, and the University of California, Berkeley’s Health Services Management Program. He is co-author (with Robert Fritz) of The Managerial Moment of Truth, published by Simon & Schuster (Free Press) in 2006.
Mr. Bodaken joined Blue Shield in 1994 as president and chief operating officer. Previously, he served as senior vice president and associate chief operating officer of FHP International Corporation in Southern California. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Victor J. Dzau - Victor Dzau, MD, is the chancellor for Health Affairs at Duke University and president and CEO of the Duke University Health System. Most recently, Dr. Dzau was the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic (Medicine) at Harvard Medical School and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Dzau has been the recipient of many awards and honors, including the prestigious Gustav Nylin Medal by the Swedish Royal College of Medicine and the Swedish Cardiology Society. Dr. Dzau was also the previous chairman of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Cardiovascular Disease Advisory Committee.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel - Ezekiel Emanuel earned his PhD and MD degrees from Harvard University, where his doctoral dissertation received the Toppan Award for the finest political science dissertation of the year. After earning his MD PhD, he was a Fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Dr. Emanuel completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and an Oncology Fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and then joined the faculty at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Before accepting his current position as the Chair of the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health in 1998, Dr. Emanuel was an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Widely published on the ethics of clinical research, advance care directives, end-of-life issues, euthanasia, the ethics of managed care, and the physician-patient relationship, Dr. Emanuel's articles have appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of American Medical Association, and many other medical and ethics journals. His book, The Ends of Human Life, has been widely praised and received the Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.
Dr. Emanuel served on the ethics section of former President Clinton's Health Task Force, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the International Advisory Board on Bioethics of the Pan American Health Organization. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UCLA, and Brin Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He is an oncologist.
The Future of Health Care with discussants Bruce Bodaken, Victor J. Dzau and Ezekiel J. Emanuel. The panel is moderated by Gary D. Ahlquist and sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.
Some of the most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, business people, teachers and other leaders drawn from myriad fields and from across the country and around the world all gathered in a single place - to teach, speak, lead, question, and answer at the 2006 Aspen Ideas Festival. Throughout the week, they all interacted with an audience of thoughtful people who stepped back from their day-to-day routines to delve deeply into a world of ideas, thought, and discussion.