This article is about a session at Health Journalism 2008.
Get a webcast or podcast of this session.
Panelists:
• Karen Davis, president, The Commonwealth Fund
• David Himmelstein, M.D., associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School
• Tom Miller, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute
• Julie Barnes, deputy director, health policy program, The New America Foundation
• Moderator, Julie Appleby, reporter, USA Today
By Pia Christensen
Association of Health Care Journalists
In a lively roundtable session over lunch, it was clear there are a wide range of concerns and idea about how to reform America's health system. But it wasn't clear what direction this country will take.
Moderator Julie Appleby of USA Today kept the session moving while letting each of the four panelists outline their positions.
When asked about the single biggest impediment to reform, David Himmelstein, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, identified the corporations who are making so much money off the current system.
Tom Miller, of the American Enterprise Institute, said that it was that people think the problem is someone else's responsibility.
Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said that, as an economist, she sees the problem as how we're going to pay for reform.
Julie Barnes, deputy director of the health policy program at The New America Foundation, said that "We can't have a fast enough conversation" about reform. She said all stakeholders need to have a yearlong conversation on the subject.
Appleby mentioned the attempt at Health Policy in the 1990s and asked "What's different this time?"
Miller said the difference is that people are asking better questions this time.
There was some discussion of the Health Policy undertaken by Massachusetts, which Himmelstein described as "already falling apart" because of the high price of administrative costs. "We have a fake program in place." Davis identified the message from Massachusetts as being "states can't do it alone." Barnes said the problem with that reform effort was that the state miscounted the number of uninsured. But, she said, "States are doing incredible things to solve the problem." She suggested that reporters look at what their states are doing to reform health care.
When asked about story ideas for reporters at the conference, Himmelstein suggesting talking to doctors about what they support and why. Miller wanted to know why it is that people think by shifting costs, things will improve. Davis suggested that reporters "follow the money" and look at the prices for medical devices and pharmaceuticals and the different prices that are charged to different people and groups.
Related: From healthjournalism2008.blogspot.com.
