Health Care Reform: Images and Realities of Costs, Quality, and Access

Wesleyan will host a public forum, "U.S. Health Care Reform: Images and Realities of Costs, Quality, and Access,” Friday, November 1 from 4.00-5.30 pm, in the Powell Family Cinema on Washington Terrace.

Three of the country’s leading specialists in health policy, economics and health communication will address the implementation and effects of the Affordable Care Act, and consider how political messaging by both proponents and opponents of the ACA is helping shape public opinion and frame the terms of the debate. John Dankosky, News Director of WNPR and radio host of “Where We Live” (CT Public Broadcasting Network) will moderate a question/answer discussion with the panelists and audience following the presentations.

The three panelists are:  
Don H. Taylor, Jr., Associate Professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and Duke Medical Center. Professor Taylor’s papers have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, BMJ, Health Affairs, The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and Social Science and Medicine. His ongoing research is in the area of patient decision-making and Medicare hospice policy, and he is currently writing a book on the role of health care policy in developing a long-range balanced budget in the U.S. He was named a member of the HRSA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee that was created by the Affordable Care Act to reconsider how the federal government identifies Health Professional Shortage Areas and Medically Underserved Areas.  

Austin Frakt, Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Boston University School of Medicine. Since 2003, Dr. Frakt has served as a Health Economist in Health Care Financing & Economics at the VA Boston Healthcare System. He joined the BU School of Public Health as Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in 2007 and the BU School of Medicine in 2011. Dr. Frakt’s primary research interests include the policy, utilization, and financing of public health care programs with a recent focus on VA and Medicare prescription drug policy. His presentation will address economic questions about the ACA and its effects and explore possible implications for costs, access and quality of health care of cost shifting, payer and/or provider consolidation and changing structures of competition.  

Sarah Gollust, Assistant Professor of Public Health Administration and Policy, University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Dr. Gollust is a political scientist whose research focuses on the intersection of media, public opinion, and population health. Dr. Gollust received her BA in Biology from Wesleyan in 2001 and her PhD from the University of Michigan. Her dissertation work examined the political implications of media framing of type 2 diabetes. Dr. Gollust’s presentation will address the significance of media/marketing strategies in framing the country’s current national debate over “Obamacare.”