June 2, 2004

Speaker Biographies

Anne K. Gauthier is vice president of AcademyHealth. She comes to AcademyHealth from one of its predecessor organizations, the Alpha Center, where since January 1989 she has directed a wide range of health policy and demonstration projects concerned with health care financing and delivery issues of national significance. Ms. Gauthier serves as program director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization initiative and as senior adviser for the foundation’s State Coverage Initiatives program. She oversees the development and operation of AcademyHealth programs for research/policy syntheses and for information services, including serving as principal investigator for the National Library of Medicine’s HSRProj. Before joining the Alpha Center, Ms. Gauthier was senior researcher for the National Leadership Commission on Health Care and served in the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment.

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. From 1981 to 1989, he served as the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation and 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.

David A. Hyman is a professor of law at the University of Maryland and currently serves as special counsel at the Federal Trade Commission. As of July 1, 2004, he will be a professor of law and medicine at the University of Illinois. He teaches courses on civil procedure, health care regulation, insurance, law and economics, professional responsibility, tax policy, and health care law. Dr. Hyman’s principal research interests are the regulation of health care financing and delivery and empirical law and economics. He practiced with the firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt and has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas in 1999 and George Washington University School of Law from 2000 to 2001. Dr. Hyman has published articles on a wide range of subjects, including managed care, professional liability, consumer protection, narrative, professional responsibility, tax exemption, and civil procedure. He is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Law & Medicine, is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and is member of the American Law Institute.

Gail A. Jensen is a professor at Wayne State University, jointly appointed at the university’s Institute of Gerontology and in the Department of Economics. Much of her research over the last ten years has focused on issues surrounding markets for private health insurance in the U.S., particularly employer-sponsored group coverage. Ms. Jensen has published studies on the content and changing nature of employer-sponsored health benefits—among both small and large businesses, the scope of corporate health benefits for retirees, the changing views of employers regarding health care reform, and the effects of state insurance regulations on employer insurance offerings. In one of her current projects, she and Michael Morrisey of the University of Alabama-Birmingham are studying employer-sponsored health insurance. In another study, Ms. Jensen and Stephen Spurr of Wayne State University’s economics department are examining the role of care quality in the outcome of malpractice litigation in Michigan.

Roland McDevitt heads the health care research team at Watson Wyatt’s Research & Information Center in Washington, D.C. His current research interests are focused on the evolution of consumer-driven health plans as a means to enhance the value of medical benefits offered to employees. Mr. McDevitt’s recent work includes an examination of employer-sponsored retiree health benefits and the consequences of employers’ efforts to limit their liabilities from these benefits. He has developed simulation models to estimate the costs associated with changes in plan design, an aging population, and health care reform. Before joining Watson Wyatt, Mr. McDevitt was director of health research for the United Mine Workers of America Health & Retirement Funds. He has also worked with the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and various other public and private organizations with an interest in Medicare and retiree health benefits.

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