How will Obamacare affect California's employers? A panel of health-care insiders dissect the Supreme Court's decision on Obama's health-reform plan (Obamacare), focusing on California's providers and patients.
The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the majority of President Obama's health-reform plan, including the requirement of individual coverage, was one of the most closely watched decisions of the Supreme Court in years, with effects rippling outward to touch every corner of the country. How will this momentous ruling affect your health coverage and medical care? What does it mean for businesses and health-care providers? A panel of health-care insiders and advocates will dissect the Supreme Court's decision on The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, focusing on its impact on providers and patients in California.
Bio
Lisa Aliferis
For the past decade, Lisa Aliferis has specialized in producing medical reports for television, most recently at Dateline NBC. She also produced health reports for five years at KPIX-TV in San Francisco. As a 1996 Kaiser Family Foundation Media Fellow, Aliferis examined issues related to end-of-life care. She spent months documenting the stories of three families and whose loved ones were hospitalized in an intensive care unit; the families struggled along with doctors in deciding how far to go with aggressive medical treatment. Aliferis is a graduate of Brown University.
Bill Kramer
Bill Kramer is Executive Director for National Health Policy at the Pacific Business Group on Health. In this role he leads PBGH's work at the federal and state level to advance policy in ways that improve health care quality and reduce costs. Bill also serves as Project Director for the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project, a collaborative led by PBGH and the National Partnership for Women & Families to improve the quality and affordability of health care. Bill serves on the National Priorities Partnership, the Measure Applications Partnership Coordinating Committee, and the AQA Alliance Steering Group.
Immediately prior to taking his position at PBGH, Bill led his own consulting practice in which he provided policy analysis, strategic guidance and technical assistance on health reform issues in Oregon and at the national level. He also provided consulting services in the areas of finance and business strategy to health systems and insurers. Prior to developing his consulting practice, Bill was a senior executive with Kaiser Permanente for over 20 years--most recently as Chief Financial Officer for Kaiser Permanente's Northwest Region. Bill also served as general manager for Kaiser Permanente's operations in Connecticut; earlier in his career, he managed marketing, human resources, and medical economics functions. Prior to his career at Kaiser, he was Chief of Budget and Program Analysis Services for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. Bill has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA from Harvard.
Peter Lee
Peter Lee is Executive Director of the California Health Benefit Exchange.
Larry Levitt
Larry Levitt is Vice President for Communications and Online Information and Editor-in-Chief, kaisernetwork.org for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Before joining the Foundation, Mr. Levitt was a senior manager with The Lewin Group, where he advised public and private sector clients on health policy and financing issues. He previously served as a Senior Health Policy Advisor to the White House and Department of Health and Human Services, working on the development of President Clinton's Health Security Act and other health policy initiatives. He co-chaired the working group on cost containment in conjunction with the President's Task Force on Health Care reform.
Prior to that, he served as the Special Assistant for Health Policy with California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, where he co-authored Commissioner Garamendi's California Health Care in the 21st Century proposal. Before joining Insurance Commissioner Garamendi, Mr. Levitt was a medical economist with Kaiser Permanente, where he worked on insurance reform and other public policy issues.
He previously managed new program development for the Massachusetts Department of Medical Security, the agency charged with implementing the universal
health care plan in Massachusetts. He was responsible for the design of new health programs under the plan, and for management of the fund used to reimburse hospitals for uncompensated care. He also served as a senior analyst with the Governor's budget office in Massachusetts, where he helped develop that state's universal healthcare legislation.
He holds a bachelors degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a masters degree in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
Anthony Wright
Anthony Wright is Executive Director for Health Access California, the statewide health care consumer advocacy coalition which has been a leader in both state and national efforts to fight health care budget cuts, to win consumer protections, and to advance comprehensive health reform and coverage expansions. Wright led fights to pass a first-in-the-nation law to set standards for timely access to care, and a first-in-the-nation law against hospital overcharging of the uninsured, and to win a prescription drug discount program despite an $80 million industry campaign against it.
A consumer advocate and community organizer. Wright has been widely quoted in local and national media on a range of issues. He has also worked for New Jersey Citizen Action, the Center for Media Education, The Nation magazine, and in Vice President Gore's office in the White House.
