A major sticking point is whether Congress should create a new government health insurance program to compete with private insurers to cover Americans not yet eligible for Medicare. Is fair competition between public and private insurance feasible? And how would it affect the cost and quality of care?
Bio
Karen Davenport
Karen Davenport is Director of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress. Before joining American Progress, she served as Washington Director for the Medicare Rights Center, coordinating the organization's national policy activities, partnership development and fund-raising activities.
As a Senior Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, she developed and managed national programs dedicated to increasing health insurance coverage - including Covering Kids and Families and Covering America: Real Remedies for the Uninsured - and improving long-term care financing and services for frail elders and people with disabilities.
David A. Hyman
David A. Hyman is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and a professor of law and medicine at the University of Illinois. Hyman has been a member of the American Law Institute since 2000 and serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Law and Medicine.
He was a special counsel in the Office of the General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission from November 2001 through November 2004. Professor Hyman is a member of the bars of Illinois and the District of Columbia. He is admitted to practice before the 6th, 7th, and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeal and the United States Tax Court.
Cathy Schoen
Cathy Schoen is Senior Vice President at The Commonwealth Fund. She is a member of the Fund's executive management team and research director of the Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System. Her work includes strategic oversight and management of surveys, research and policy initiatives to track health system performance. From 1998 through 2005, she directed the Fund's Task Force on the Future of Health Insurance. Prior to joining the Fund in 1995, Ms. Schoen taught health economics at the University of Massachusetts' School of Public Health and directed special projects at the UMASS Labor Relations and Research Center. During the 1980s, she directed the Service Employees International Union's research and policy department. In the late 1970s, she was on the staff of President Carter's national health insurance task force, where she oversaw analysis and policy development. Prior to federal service, she was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She has authored numerous publications on health policy issues, insurance, and national/international health system performance and co-authored the book Health and the War on Poverty.
Karen Tumulty
Karen Tumulty is TIME's National Political Correspondent based out of Washington DC, where she covers national political developments for the magazine. Since assuming that position in 2001, Tumulty has written cover stories on topics that range from America's love-or-hate relationship with former President George Bush, to the role of religion in the 2004 campaign, to the unlikely ascendancy and dramatic fall of Howard Dean, to Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid for the governorship of California.
Previously, she was the magazine's White House Correspondent. In addition to appearing on Washington Week, Tumulty also makes frequent appearances on CNN, CNBC and CBS.
Gail Wilensky
Gail Wilensky, an economist and a Senior Fellow at Project HOPE, analyzes and develops policies relating to health care reform and to ongoing changes in the health care environment.
Dr. Wilensky is a Commissioner on the WHO's Commission On the Social Determinants of Health, an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies and its Governing Council; is Vice Chair of the Maryland Health Care Commission; and serves as a trustee of the Combined Benefits Fund of the United Mineworkers of America, the American Heart Association and the National Opinion Research Center. She is an advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund, immediate past chair of the Board of Directors of Academy Health and is a director on several corporate boards.
David Hyman argues that if there is a monopoly in health care, the government should dissolve the monopoly and not begin competing against it by being both a "competitor and a regulator."
He likens the current situation to antitrust cases against Intel and Google.
Great vid thanks for sharing. It's just getting really hard for the average person to follow all of the changes that health care is facing. Seems like the only insurance I ever had an easy time with was the <a href="http://www.life.realinsurance.com.au/Life-Insurance/Family-Life-Cover.aspx">life cover</a> plan I was able to get at http://www.life.realinsurance.com.au...ife-Cover.aspx .
Cut the homeland security funds. cut the prison economy down to two thirds. tax the insurance companies 3 times above the rates citizens tax's. (bankers and those above the 250.000 mark as well,of course the chemical companies who control the doctors stock portfolio). it is time to bring multi nationals.
The RSS feed ( http://fora.tv/RSS/fora_rss ) links to "http://fora.tv/2009/06/17/Another_Government_Health_Insurance_Programr" with an extra "r" at the end, and displayed a "Page Not Found!" page, so this may be hard to find.