March 28, 2002Contact: Kara Gavin, [email protected], 734-764-2220
New health insurance approaches to be debated at April 12 U-M forum
ANN ARBOR, MI -- Faced with skyrocketing health insurance costs that threaten their already vulnerable bottom line, many American companies are now looking seriously at new strategies for providing health benefits to their employees at a lower cost. But will American workers and health care providers also gain if employers dump HMOs in favor of medical savings accounts and "defined contributions" that give workers a certain amount of cash to spend on health care?
This question, and other issues surrounding the emerging trend of insurance innovations, will be at the heart of an April 12 forum at the University of Michigan. Sponsored by the FORUM on Health Policy of the U-M Medical School's Program in Society and Medicine, it will feature speakers from industry, labor organizations, health care providers and academia.
The discussion, titled "Emerging Strategies that Shift Health Care Costs: Who Gets the Benefit?", will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the U-M School of Public Health II building, on Washington Heights off Observatory Street. It is free and open to the public. For more information, call 734-615-8334 or e-mail [email protected].
"Companies large and small are considering a move toward MSAs and defined contributions, and other 'consumer-driven' health plans, but we still don't know a lot for certain about how these strategies will play out for workers and providers," says FORUM coordinator Marilynn Rosenthal, Ph.D., a professor of sociology at U-M-Dearborn. "This roundtable discussion will bring representatives of the major players in this debate together to air the issues."
The panel for the discussion will be made up of Roger Chizek, U.S. benefits director for Medtronic, Inc., a medical device manufacturer that was one of the first major companies to introduce defined contribution as an insurance option for its employees; Charles Gayney, director of Social Security for United Auto Workers; Richard Hirth, Ph.D., associate professor and health economist at the U-M School of Public Health; Thomas Nantaias, vice president and chief financial officer for the Henry Ford Medical Group; and Paul Taheri, M.D., associate professor of surgery and assistant dean for business development at the U-M Medical School.
The event will be moderated by J. Barry Sloat, former director of healthcare business strategy at Ford Motor Company, and the question-and-answer period will be moderated by Max Heirich, Ph.D., emeritus professor of sociology at U-M's College of Literature, Science and the Arts.
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