The Politics of Managed Care: Second Opinions, New Options
POLICY FORUMTuesday, April 17, 2001
12:00 p.m.
Featuring Richard Smith, American Association of Health Plans; David A. Hyman, George Washington University Law School; and E. Haavi Morreim, University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
The Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Watch the Event in Real Video
Listen to the Event in Real Audio (Audio Only)
Over the last four years, various interest groups and the plaintiff's bar targeted managed care insurance as the latest "pariah" industry. Well-publicized media horror stories portray a patient's life under managed health care as nasty, brutish, and short. Congress appears poised to finally enact some version of a "patients' bill of rights" law later this year, full of regulatory edicts and expanded legal liabilities. Most of the political debate over managed care thus far has focused on the relative costs and benefits of expanded litigation over health plan coverage decisions. Our panel of health policy experts will examine the more fundamental issue: How to manage managed care-through Congress and the courts or competition and contracts?