At the White House summit on health care reform, President Obama said, "If there is a way of getting this done where we're driving down costs and people are getting health insurance at an affordable rate, and have choice of doctor, have flexibility in terms of their plans, and we could do that entirely through the market, I'd be happy to do it that way."
Are there free-market reforms that can meet those goals? Can the market reform health care?
Bio
Tom G. Donlan
Thomas G. Donlan is the Editorial Page Editor at Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly. For fifteen years, he has been writing in his Barron's columns about the power of capitalism to solve society's toughest problems. One of America's best-known writers on issues related to the economy, politics, and investing, he is a frequently cited expert and guest in the nation's major media.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Douglas Holtz-Eakin has a distinguished record as an academic, policy adviser, and strategist. Currently he is the President of the American Action Forum and most recently was a Commissioner on the Congressionally-chartered Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Since 2001, he has served in a variety of important policy positions. During 2001-2002, he was the Chief Economist of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (where he had also served during 1989-1990 as a Senior Staff Economist). At CEA he helped to formulate policies addressing the 2000-2001 recession and the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. From 2003-2005 he was the 6th Director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which provides budgetary and policy analysis to the U.S. Congress. During his tenure, CBO assisted Congress as they addressed numerous policies -- notably the 2003 tax cuts (JGTRRA), the Medicare prescription drug bill (MMA), and Social Security reform. During 2007 and 2008 he was Director of Domestic and Economic Policy for the John McCain presidential campaign. Following the 2008 election Dr. Holtz-Eakin was the President of DHE Consulting, an economic and policy consulting firm providing insight and research to a broad cross-section of clients.
Dr. Holtz-Eakin has held positions in several Washington-based think tanks. He was Senior Fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics (2007-2008), and the Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and the Paul A. Volcker Chair in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (2006). He has also been a visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, and American Family Business Foundation.
Dr. Holtz-Eakin built an international reputation as a scholar doing research in areas of applied economic policy, econometric methods, and entrepreneurship. He began his career at Columbia University in 1985 and moved to Syracuse University from 1990 to 2001. At Syracuse, he became Trustee Professor of Economics at the Maxwell School, Chairman of the Department of Economics and Associate Director of the Center for Policy Research.
Dr. Holtz-Eakin serves on the Boards of the Tax Foundation, National Economists Club, and the Research Advisory Board of the Center for Economic Development.
Stephen T. Parente
Stephen T. Parente is an Associate Professor in the Department of Finance in the Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota where he specializes in health economics, health insurance, medical technology evaluation and health information technology. He has extensive experience directing empirical analyses utilizing primary and secondary data bases, and is acknowledged as a national expert on using administrative databases, particularly Medicare and health insurer data, for health policy research.
He has served as a consultant to several of the largest health care organizations including: UnitedHealth Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Johnson and Johnson, Medtronic, Pfizer, Merck, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and various government agencies. He is currently the principal investigator for several projects evaluating the impact of consumer-directed health plans.
Mark V. Pauly
Mark Pauly is the Bendheim Professor of Health Care Systems, Business and Public Policy, Insurance and Risk Management, and Economics, at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been at the Wharton School since 1983. Before that, he was on the faculty at Northwestern University.
He has served as Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and Vice Dean for Doctoral Programs at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, he has served on state commissions to study insurance and on Institute of Medicine panels looking at accountability in Medicare, vaccine financing, and substance abuse treatment. He was commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Commission, and twice served as a member of a technical review panel to study methods for forecasting Medicare's future costs.
Richard L. Scott
Richard Scott is considered one of America's foremost health care entrepreneurs. Scott is the founder of two health care providers, Columbia Hospital Corporation and Solantic Corporation. He currently serves as Chairman of Solantic Corporation.
