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June 8, 2005
Congress has set its sights on Medicaid, the program that provides health care for over 50 million Americans. In March, the Senate rejected the $20 billion, five-year Medicaid funding cut called for by the President and House of Representatives. By April, the final budget resolution called for $10 billion in federal Medicaid savings and a commission created by the Bush administration. Despite this apparent compromise, deep divisions remain over how to improve the program.
To shed light on this debate, the Center for American Progress has gathered a panel of experts to present papers that assess the main cost drivers in Medicaid and suggest ways Congress can improve its ability to ensure access to needed care for low-income families, persons with disabilities and seniors.
Video & Transcript
• Terri Shaw: Video
• Judy Feder: Video
• Andy Schneider: Video
• Kathleen Gifford: Video
• Joy Wilson: Video
• Jeanne Lambrew: Video
• Q1: “Money Follows the Person” and other Reforms: Video
• Q2: Florida Medicaid Reforms: Video
• Q3: Medicaid & Health Care Reform: Video
• Q4: Proposed Core v. Supplemental Benefits: Video
• Q5: Medicare B & Long Term Care: Video
• Transcript: Full text
Note: All video provided in Windows Media format.
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| Panelists |
 Judy Feder is Professor and Dean of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. She is one of the nation’s leaders in health policy. Her expertise on the uninsured, Medicare, Medicaid, and long-term care is regularly drawn upon by members of Congress, Executive officials, and the national media. Feder has also held leadership policy positions, both in the Congress and in the Executive Branch. As Staff Director of the congressional Pepper Commission (chaired by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV), Feder is widely credited with setting the stage for the health reform debate of the 1990s. She became a key actor in that debate, as a senior official in the Clinton Administration. In her three years as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at Health and Human Services, Feder helped shape the Administration’s health care policy, working intensively with members of Congress and with the national media to promote the expansion of health care coverage. Feder today pursues her policy leadership at Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute. She continues her research as Co-Director (with Sheila Burke) of the Georgetown University Long-term Care Financing Project and as Senior Advisor to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and a member of the Commonwealth Task Force on the Uninsured. Feder is a political scientist, with a B.A. from Brandeis University and a master’s and Ph.D. from Harvard University. |
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 Andy Schneider has over 30 years of experience with the Medicaid program – as a consultant, as a congressional staffer, and as a public interest and legal services lawyer. Currently, Schneider is a Principal with Medicaid Policy, LLC, which he founded in January 2000. Based in Washington, D.C., this consulting firm specializes in Medicaid issues affecting program beneficiaries, state agencies, providers, and managed care organizations. Schneider is also an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services. From 1979 through 1994, he served as Counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the House Commerce Committee. Schneider’s primary responsibility was Medicaid, over which the Subcommittee had exclusive legislative jurisdiction in the House. In 1995 and 1996, he served as Policy Advisor for Medicaid to the House Democratic Policy Committee within the Office of Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO). During his tenure on the Hill, Schneider staffed Medicaid issues on ten Budget Reconciliation acts, the 1988 Medicare Catastrophic legislation, and the 1991 Medicaid Provider Donations and Taxes legislation. |
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 Kathleen Gifford is a Principal with Health Management Associates. She specializes in Medicaid and other government financed health care programs. Prior to joining HMA in January 2002, Ms. Gifford directed the State of Indiana’s Medicaid program – a $3 billion program providing care to over 650,000 members. Ms. Gifford also chaired the Indiana Prescription Drug Advisory Committee and worked at the Indiana State Budget Agency in various roles including Assistant Director for Health and Human Services, Assistant Director for Education and Economic Development, and Deputy Budget Director. In those roles, she was responsible for budget development, policy and fiscal analysis on a wide range of issues including welfare reform, school funding equalization, and Medicaid. |
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 Joy Johnson Wilson is Federal Affairs Counsel and Director of Health Policy at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). NCSL represents the legislatures of the 50 states, as well as those of commonwealths, territories and the District of Columbia. As Federal Affairs Counsel, she assists with overall government relations, administrative, and public affairs activities in the NCSL Washington Office. As Director of Health Policy, she designs and implements the lobbying strategy for the conference on health care issues. Ms. Wilson has been with NCSL since 1978. She took a leave of absence in 1989 to serve on the staff of the U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, better known as the “Pepper Commission.” She received a Bachelor of Science from Keene State College in New Hampshire and a Master of Regional Planning degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
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 Jeanne Lambrew is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and an Associate Professor at George Washington University where she teaches health policy and conducts policy-relevant research on the uninsured, Medicaid, Medicare, and long-term care. Lambrew worked on health policy at the White House from 1997 through 2001, as the Program Associate Director for health at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and as the Senior Health Analyst at the National Economic Council. In these roles, she helped coordinate health policy development, evaluated legislative proposals, and conducted and managed analyses and cost estimates with OMB, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department, the Labor Department and other relevant agencies. She was the White House lead on drafting and implementing the Children’s Health Insurance Program and helped develop the president’s Medicare reform plan, initiative on long-term care, and other health care proposals. She also worked at the Department of Health and Human Services during the 1993-1994 health reform efforts, and coordinated analyses of budget proposals in 1995. Prior to serving at the White House, Lambrew was an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University (1996). She received her masters and Ph.D. from the Department of Health Policy, School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and bachelor’s degree from Amherst College. |
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