In just over a decade, the idea of "managed health care" insurance has gone from the potential savior of American medical care, to a public whipping boy, to a shadow of its former self.
The idea of improving the public's health while at the same time containing costs -- the main goals of managed care when the first HMOs hit the national spotlight in the late 1980s -- may still sound good.
But the current reality is much harsher, as health care costs rise dramatically, employers grapple with increased insurance premiums, employees balk at footing more of the bill, doctors rebel against managed-care's constraints, several levels of government struggle with how to better handle public insurance and the uninsured, and the legal system delivers decisions that affect how insurance plans operate.
On March 21, a panel of experts from the University of Michigan and the public and private sectors will attempt to tackle these thorny issues in a lecture and discussion session presented by the U-M Forum on Health Policy. The Forum is part of the U-M Medical School's Program on Society and Medicine.
From noon to 2:30 p.m. in the Ford Amphitheater of the main U-M hospital, 1500 E. Medical Center Drive in Ann Arbor, the speakers will take part in a session on the critical issues facing HMOs and other managed care insurance plans, titled "Can Managed Care Survive Today's Challenges?" and co-sponsored by the U-M Department of Internal Medicine. The event is free and open to the public; call 734-615-8334 or e-mail [email protected] for more information.
"This lecture series last tackled the issue of managed care in 1997, when regulations affecting the insurance industry were a hot topic. That discussion grew into a book, 'The Challenges of Regulating Managed Care'," notes Forum director Marilynn Rosenthal, Ph.D. "But with so much turmoil in health care right now, and so much of it affecting managed care plans and the nearly 200 million people who belong to them, we thought it was high time to revisit these evolving issues and their implications for our health care system."
Among the featured speakers will be Zelda Geyer-Sylvia, M.P.H., executive director of M-CARE, the U-M Health System's managed care organization, and adjunct professor at the U-M School of Public Health. She will be joined by David Butz, M.B.A., Ph.D., assistant professor of business economics and public policy at the U-M Business School, and co-director of the U-M Center for Healthcare Economics.
Their talks will be moderated by John Billi, M.D., associate dean for medical affairs at the U-M Medical School, and U-M associate vice president for medical affairs.
The two speakers' remarks will be followed by a panel composed of Jan Whitehouse, the regional director for health initiatives at General Motors Corporation; Janet Olszewski, M.S.W., the director of the Michigan Department of Community Health; and Peter Jacobson, J.D., M.P.H., an associate professor at the U-M School of Public Health in the Department of Health Management and Policy. The panel discussion will be moderated by Gail Agrawal, J.D., M.P.H., a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.
An audience question-and-answer period, moderated by Duane Kirking, Pharm.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of social and administrative sciences in the U-M College of Pharmacy, will conclude the event.
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