June 29, 2005

Speaker Biographies

Philip Ellis is a senior analyst in the Health and Human Resources Division of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), with a focus on health care costs including the Medicare program. He was the primary author of A Detailed Description of CBO’s Cost Estimate for the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, which explained the assumptions and methods CBO used in estimating the effects of that legislation on drug coverage and spending. Prior to joining CBO, he worked on Medicare and other health reform issues in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services and at the Treasury Department.

Robert B. Helms is a resident scholar and the director of health policy studies at AEI. He has written and lectured extensively on health policy, health economics, and pharmaceutical economic issues. Mr. Helms currently participates in the Consensus Group, an informal task force that is developing market-oriented health reform concepts. He is also a member (2005–07) of the National Advisory Council for Healthcare Research and Quality of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. From 1981 to 1989, he served as the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation and as deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Helms is the editor of several AEI publications on health policy: Medicare in the Twenty-first Century: Seeking Fair and Efficient Reform; American Health Policy: Critical Issues for Reform; Health Policy Reform: Competition and Controls; Health Care Policy and Politics: Lessons from Four Countries; and Competitive Strategies in the Pharmaceutical Industry.

William Jack is an associate professor in the Department of Economics at Georgetown University. He has held academic posts at Sydney University and the Australian National University, and has worked as an economist with the Joint Committee on Taxation at the United States Congress and with the International Monetary Fund. His research interests lie in applied public economic theory, including public finance, health economics, and development. He is preparing to take two years leave from Georgetown to live in Nairobi, Kenya.

Tom Miller is a senior health economist for the vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. He previously was the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute for three years, where he directed a research program that focused on restoring individual choice, control, and responsibility to the U.S. health care system. Mr. Miller also spent fourteen years at the Competitive Enterprise Institute as director of economic policy studies and as a senior policy analyst. Before coming to Washington, he was a trial attorney, a journalist, and a radio broadcaster (including several seasons as play-by-play voice of the Davidson College Wildcats basketball team). Mr. Miller’s writing has appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Reader's Digest, Reason, American Spectator, National Review, Health Affairs, Regulation, and Cato Journal.

Louise Sheiner is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where she specializes in issues related to health insurance, health care, Social Security and Medicare. Her research has focused on the labor market effects of health insurance costs and health reforms; the macroeconomic impacts of population aging; the accuracy of long-term Medicare projections; and the efficiency of medical spending and the Medicare program. Her public policy experience includes serving as senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers, and as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department.

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