The Affordable Care Act makes Medicare the engine for achieving systemwide reform through initiation of and experimentation with alternative payment designs—in particular, Accountable Care Organizations and, through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, complementary initiatives to integrate health care. The success of health care reform will depend heavily on the choices made in defining the law’s new policy tools. Will payment reforms be designed around hospital systems or will they encourage new forms of integration among physicians and other health care providers? Will payment incentives limit payment for costs above expectations in addition to rewarding costs that are below expectations? What rights and responsibilities will consumers have in a system where providers are paid on a bundled-care basis and rewarded for more efficient care?
Please join us for a discussion of these and other questions related to implementing the Affordable Care Act’s new mechanisms for promoting better care at lower costs.
Welcome:
Neera Tanden, Chief Operating Officer, Center for American Progress
Introductory remarks:
Nancy-Ann DeParle, Counselor to the President; Director, White House Office of Health Reform
Featured panelists:
Jonathan Blum, Deputy Administrator and Director, Center of Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Glenn Hackbarth, Chairman, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
Steven Lieberman, President, Lieberman Consulting, Inc.; Visiting Scholar, The Engelberg Center for Health Reform at The Brookings Institution
Debra Ness, President, The National Partnership for Women & Families; Leader, Campaign for Better Care
Moderated by:
Judy Feder, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress