Webinar: Controlling Health Care Spending: The Imperative to Act and Diverse Views of the Road Forward

February 2, 2012, 1:00 PM EST

The U.S. now spends $2.5 trillion annually on health care, accounting for well over 17 percent of GDP and growing rapidly with challenging fiscal consequences. Despite the imperative to control spending, we face much uncertainty about how to move to a more sustainable path. Political opposition threatens implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and many of its cost-control measures are still unproven. A long-term fix for Medicare physician payment remains elusive. The trigger mechanism activated by the failure of the Super Committee is poised to affect myriad health programs, but decisions on the specific cuts await sure-to-be intense congressional negotiations. And the many ideas for entitlement reform that were advanced during deficit reduction talks continue to generate much debate but little consensus.

To shed light on these complex issues, this webinar featured leading health policy experts discussing topics including:

• health spending growth and the implications for government budgets, employers and individuals
• the societal trade-offs we face as health spending grows and as we think about ways to control spending
• alternative viewpoints on the viability of cost control approaches now being tried and the most promising options for the future

More information:

• Agenda
• Speaker Biographies
• Presentations
  
  • Setting the Stage: The Latest Data on U.S. Health Care Spending (33.9 MB)
    To improve download speed, here is the presentation in two parts: Part 1 / Part 2 (19.2 / 16.4 MB)
    Julie A. Schoenman, PhD, Director of Research and Quality, NIHCM Foundation
  • The Consequences of Rising Health Care Spending (4.1 MB)
    Michael E. Chernew, PhD, Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School
  • Point-Counterpoint: The Outlook and Options for Controlling Health Spending
    James C. Capretta, MA, Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center
    Jonathan Gruber, PhD, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Webinar Archive
• Additional Resources:
  • Bibliography of Articles on Health Care Spending
  • Medicare and the Federal Deficit. NIHCM Foundation webinar archive, July 2011.
  • Premium support proposal and critique. Austin Frakt, PhD, post in The Incidental Economist blog, December 2011.
  • Tiered Provider Networks as a Strategy to Improve Health Care Quality and Efficiency. Anna Sinaiko, PhD, essay in NIHCM Foundation Expert Voices series, February 2012.
  • Understanding U.S. Health Care Spending. NIHCM Foundation data brief, July 2011.