Beyond More Health Insurance Coverage, toward Better Health Outcomes
Thomas P. Miller, Tomas J. Philipson
July 23, 2008
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The health policy debate in the 2008 presidential campaign year needs to move beyond the well-rehearsed pattern of the past, which focused primarily on how to expand insurance coverage to more Americans and find (or hide) the amount of money needed to pay for more health care services. Expanding the parameters of discussion might create a more productively balanced portfolio of public policy tools that would improve overall health more affordably. Speakers at this conference will examine some of the other policy instruments that could promote healthier behavior, health literacy, skill formation, improved decision-making, and more efficient health care delivery. The initial focus, as part of a continuing research project at AEI, will be on how some of the "upstream" factors (such as education, nutrition, family, culture, and early development) shape the behavior and capabilities of individuals over their entire life cycle of health, as well as how certain "downstream" factors (such as the alignment of payment incentives and development and dissemination of relevant performance measurement information) could improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health care delivery.

About the Author

 

Thomas P.
Miller
  • Thomas Miller is a former senior health economist for the Joint Economic Committee (JEC). He studies health care policy and regulation. A former trial attorney, journalist, and sports broadcaster, Mr. Miller is the co-author of Why ObamaCare Is Wrong For America (HarperCollins 2011) and heads AEI's "Beyond Repeal & Replace" health reform project. He has testified before Congress on issues including the uninsured, health care costs, Medicare prescription drug benefits, health insurance tax credits, genetic information, Social Security, and federal reinsurance of catastrophic events. While at the JEC, he organized a number of hearings that focused on reforms in private health care markets, such as information transparency and consumer-driven health care.
  • Phone: 202-862-5886
    Email: tmiller@aei.org

  • Assistant Info

    Name: Catherine Griffin
    Phone: 202-862-5920
    Email: catherine.griffin@aei.org
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Tomas J.
Philipson
  • Tomas J. Philipson is a visiting scholar at AEI and the Daniel Levin Chair in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy as well as an associate member of the department of economics at the University of Chicago. He was a senior health care adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain and served in the Bush administration as the senior economic adviser to the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 2003 to 2004 and subsequently as the senior economic adviser to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from 2004 to 2005. Mr. Philipson is an editor of Forum for Health Economics & Policy and is on the editorial board of Health Economics and The European Journal of Health Economics. He has twice been the recipient of the highest honor of his field, the Kenneth Arrow Award from the International Health Economics Association, in 2000 and 2006.  Mr. Philipson is the cofounder of Precision Health Economics, is an adviser to the Gerson Lehrman Group, and is a consultant for Compass-Lexecon and Analysis Group.
  • Email: t-philipson@uchicago.edu
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