Health Reform Hub - Your place for health reform information.

Health Reform Hub Media Kit

The Health Reform Hub provides a central access point for the latest news and information about market-based ideas in the health reform debate. The Hub provides a portal to critical analyses and insights from leaders in the health policy community and their assessments of major health reform proposals being considered by policymakers in Washington and around the country. The Health Reform Hub is a project of the Galen Institute, a non-profit research organization that works to promote ideas that advance individual freedom, consumer choice, and competition in the health sector. The Galen Institute also facilitates the work of the Health Policy Consensus Group, an affiliation of health policy experts from the leading market-based think tanks. This site highlights research and analyses produced by Galen Institute experts, Health Policy Consensus Group members, and others who are committed to a patient-centered approach to health reform. To schedule an interview with one of our experts, please contact: Jeff Lungren Communications Director Health Reform Hub Phone: 703-299-9207 Fax: 703-299-0721 Email: jeff@galen.org

Grace Marie Turner Galen Institute Consensus Group Coordinator and President

Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a public policy research organization that she founded in 1995 to promote an informed debate over free-market ideas for health reform. She has been instrumental in developing and promoting ideas for reform that transfer power over health care decisions to doctors and patients. She speaks and writes extensively about incentives to promote a more competitive, patient-centered marketplace in the health sector. Ms. Turner is founder and facilitator of the Health Policy Consensus Group, which serves as a forum for analysts from market-oriented think tanks around the country to analyze and develop policy recommendations. She is the editor of Empowering Health Care Consumers through Tax Reform and produces a widely read weekly electronic newsletter, Health Policy Matters. She has been published in major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, she has appeared on ABC's 20/20 and on hundreds of radio and television programs in the U.S. She also received the 2007 Outstanding Achievement Award for Promotion of Consumer Driven Health Care from Consumer Health World. In the mid-1990s, Ms. Turner served as executive director of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform. For 12 years, she was president of Arnett & Co., a health policy analysis and communications firm. Her early career was in politics and journalism, where she received numerous awards for her writings on politics and economics.

Joseph R. Antos, Ph.D. American Enterprise Institute Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy

Joseph Antos is also a commissioner of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission, a health adviser to the Congressional Budget Office, and an adjunct professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before joining AEI, Dr. Antos was Assistant Director for Health and Human Resources at the Congressional Budget Office. Dr. Antos holds a Bachelors Degree in Mathematics from Cornell University and a MA and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rochester. At AEI, Dr. Antos's research focuses on the economics of health policy, including Medicare reform, health insurance regulation, and the uninsured. He has written and spoken extensively on the Medicare drug benefit and has led a team of experienced independent actuaries and cost estimators in a study to evaluate various proposals to extend health coverage to the uninsured. Dr. Antos also writes for AEI's Health Policy Outlook series.

Doug Badger Center for Medicine in the Public Interest Senior Fellow

Doug Badger is a partner at the Nickles Group, a Washington, DC, based strategy firm. Prior to that position, he was Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. Before serving President Bush in that capacity, Mr. Badger was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and responsible for health policy matters. Mr. Badger has almost two decades of policy experience, particularly involving health care issues. He joined the White House from Washington Council Ernst & Young, where he was a partner since 1999. From 1989 through 1999, he worked in the United States Senate, first as Assistant Staff Director, then Staff Director of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, then as Chief of Staff to Assistant Majority Leader Senator Don Nickles. From 1985 to 1989, Mr. Badger held various policy positions in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Social Security Administration.

Joseph Bast The Heartland Institute President and CEO

Joseph Bast is president and CEO of The Heartland Institute, a 24-year-old national nonprofit research center located in Chicago, Illinois. According to a recent telephone surve, among state elected officials, The Heartland Institute is among the nation's best-known and most highly regarded "think tanks." Prior to being hired as The Heartland Institute's first employee in 1984, Mr. Bast was coeditor of the bimonthly magazine Nomos and studied economics as an undergraduate at The University of Chicago.

Robert A. Book, Ph.D. The Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Health Economics, Center for Data Analysis

Before joining The Heritage Foundation in December 2008, Dr. Book taught economics courses adapted to the needs of senior military officers and civilian national security professionals at the National Defense University 's Industrial College of the Armed Forces. While there as an Assistant Professor, he annually served on a faculty team that led a group of 16 students through an in-depth, five-month study of the health care industry. Dr. Book also has taught economics and mathematics courses at George Mason University, Loyola University in Chicago and the University of Chicago. He also worked as a Senior Associate for The Lewin Group, a health care policy research and consulting firm in Falls Church, Virginia. While there, he conducted a detailed study of the cost structure of the specialty pharmacy industry in the wake of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act. At Lewin, he also analyzed the growth of diagnostic imaging and cost changes resulting from improved technology; forecasted effects of Medicare payment changes on the long-term, acute care, and rehabilitation hospital industries; analyzed costs in pharmacy and physician practices; and studied the impact of medication therapy management by pharmacists. In 2002, he earned a doctorate in economics and an MBA from the University of Chicago for his thesis on "Public Research Funding and Private Innovation: The Case of the Pharmaceutical Industry." Dr. Book also has a master's in computational and applied mathematics from Rice University, and bachelor's degrees in mathematics and history from Duke University.

Sandy Liddy Bourne The Heartland Institute Senior Fellow

Alexandra (Sandy) Liddy Bourne is a senior fellow of The Heartland Institute focusing on environmental issues. She served as vice president for policy and strategy from 2006 until December 2008, during which time she acted as Heartland's Washington, DC, media spokesman and liaison to Heartland's Legislative Advisors (elected officials), donors, and allies. She continues to address energy and environmental regulation. Prior to joining Heartland, Ms. Bourne worked for the American Legislative Exchange Council, the nation's largest membership organization for state elected officials. As policy director she provided supervision and guidance to the policy development of nine task forces, federal affairs program, and the international program. Under her leadership, 20 percent of ALEC model bills were enacted by one state or more, up from 11 percent. Ms. Bourne started her career as a nurse, receiving a B.S.N. degree from the College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, New York, and an M.S.N. from Catholic University of America. From 1986 to 2003 she served in the U.S. Army Reserves, attaining the rank of captain in the Army Nurse Corps. In October 2001, she worked with ALEC leadership to develop a homeland security working group in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Ms. Bourne has received numerous awards, including the ALEC National Chairman's Award for Service and Dedication in 2001; Goodyear-National Association of Conservation Districts Merit Award in 1994; and Who's Who in American Nursing in 1993.

John E. Calfee, Ph.D. American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar

Jack Calfee is an economist who studies the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), along with the economics of tobacco, tort liability, and patents. He previously worked at the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Economics. He has also taught marketing and consumer behavior at the business schools of the University of Maryland at College Park and Boston University. While Dr. Calfee's current writings are mostly on pharmaceutical markets and FDA regulation, his academic articles and opinion pieces have covered a variety of topics, from patent law and tort liability to advertising and consumer information. He is the author of Prices, Markets, and the Pharmaceutical Revolution (AEI Press, 2000) and the coauthor of Biotechnology and the Patent System (AEI Press, 2007). Dr. Calfee also writes regularly for AEI's Health Policy Outlook series. He has testified before Congress and federal agencies on various topics, including alcohol advertising; biodefense vaccine research; international drug prices; and, most recently, FDA oversight of drug safety. Dr. Calfee received a BA from Rice University, an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

James C. Capretta Ethics and Public Policy Center Economics and Ethics Fellow

From January 2001 to May 2004, Mr. Capretta served as the Bush Administration's top budget official for health care, Social Security and pensions, education, and labor policy. He was the lead official in the Office of Management and Budget for all aspects of Medicare and Medicaid reform policy development and implementation as well as for the development of the President's other important domestic policy initiatives in education and labor. From June 2004 to August 2006, Mr. Capretta was a Managing Director of Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates, where he performed a wide range of consulting and advocacy services for clients. Prior to joining the White House in 2001, Mr. Capretta served for nearly a decade as a Senior Policy Analyst on the Republican Staff for the U.S. Senate Budget Committee under Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), handling health care and Social Security issues, and as a Professional Staff Member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. Mr. Capretta is also a Principal at Civic Enterprises, LLC, a public policy consulting firm, an Adjunct Fellow with the Global Aging Initiative of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an Adjunct Fellow with Hudson Institute. Mr. Capretta served as a Visiting Lecturer at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University in 2006 and was a Visiting Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution in 2005-2006.

Brian Lee Crowley Galen Institute Visiting Senior Fellow

Brian Lee Crowley joined the Galen Institute as a visiting senior fellow in March 2008. Mr. Crowley is the founding President of AIMS, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, Atlantic Canada's public policy think tank. Among his many books and other publications, Mr. Crowley co-authored two projects on the Canadian health-care system both of which won the Sir Antony Fisher Award. In recognition of his health-care work, he was named to the most influential recent provincial health-care inquiry in Canada, the Alberta Premier's Advisory Council on Health (the Mazankowski Committee). The Council's Chairman, former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazankowski, called Mr. Crowley the "intellectual architect" of the committee's report. He is a much sought-after media commentator on health-care policy and has spoken to scores of national and international conferences in recent years on health-care reform in Canada. Mr. Crowley is a frequent commentator on political and economic issues for the CBC, Radio-Canada and many other media. His articles appear in both national newspapers and numerous regional and local newspapers, including regular columns in the largest circulation newspapers in Nova Scotia (the Chronicle-Herald), New Brunswick (the Times & Transcript) and Quebec (La Presse, the largest circulation French language daily in North America). He holds degrees from McGill and the London School of Economics, including a doctorate in political economy from the latter.

Greg D'Angelo Heritage Foundation Policy Analyst, Center for Health Policy Studies

Greg D'Angelo is a Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies. In this position, Mr. D'Angelo studies Medicare, prescription drug costs and health care tax credits, among other subjects. He joined Heritage in 2006 as a Research Assistant, mostly examining the proposal to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Working with Heritage's Center for Data Analysis, Mr. D'Angelo found a key fact: Under the proposed expansion, for every 100 children covered under the government program between 50 and 60 kids would lose their private health insurance coverage.

Ryan Ellis Americans for Tax Reform Tax Policy Director

Ryan Ellis is Tax Policy Director at Americans for Tax Reform, where he is also detailed to the health care issue. Prior to working at ATR, Mr. Ellis worked extensively on Medicare and HSA issues while at Empower America under Jack Kemp. Mr. Ellis helps administer the HSA insurance program at ATR, where he has picked up valuable real-world experience. He is an IRS Enrolled Agent, making him a designated national tax expert who can testify in U.S. Tax Court. Mr. Ellis is a frequent contributor on health care to the Glen Beck Show, and does many weekly radio, TV, and podcast appearances. He has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Roll Call, Politico, The Hill, and National Review. His television appearances have included Fox News, Fox Business News, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, and the BBC.

Stephen J. Entin Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation President and Executive Director

Stephen J. Entin is currently President and Executive Director at the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation (IRET), a pro-free market economic public policy research organization based in Washington DC. He advised the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform (the Kemp Commission), assisted in the drafting of the Commission's report, and was the author of several of its support documents. Mr. Entin is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Department of the Treasury. He joined the Treasury Department in 1981 with the incoming Reagan Administration. He participated in the preparation of economic forecasts for the President's budgets, and the development of the 1981 tax cuts, including the "tax indexing" provision that keeps tax rates from rising due to inflation. Mr. Entin represented the Treasury Department in the preparation of the Annual Reports of the Board of Trustees of the Social Security System, and conducted research into the long run outlook for the system. In his work in eight annual reports of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds, Mr. Entin was instrumental in revamping the reports to make their economic and demographic assumptions more realistic and to present their information in a more informative and understandable format. This information triggered several proposals in the Congress to adjust the formulas determining social security benefits in order to avoid future payroll tax increases.

Jim Frogue Center for Health Transformation State Project Director

Jim Frogue serves as the Center's chief liaison to state policy projects. His primary areas of focus are Medicaid and Health Savings Accounts. Prior to joining the Center, Mr. Frogue was for three years Director of the Health and Human Services Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council. There, he coordinated the development and dissemination of market-oriented health policies among state legislator representatives from 45 states. Mr. Frogue also has served three Members of Congress, most recently as Legislative Director for Congresswoman Kay Granger of Texas. He also spent two years as the health care policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Mr. Frogue has testified to Congress and state legislatures in Missouri, Florida, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, Colorado, Alaska, and Georgia, as well as to the Medicaid Commission, the Western Governors' Association and to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Importation Task Force. He also was appointed by Speaker William J. Howell to the Virginia Council on Human Resources and will serve through 2012.

Robert M. Goldberg, Ph.D. Center for Medicine in the Public Interest Vice President of Programs

Robert Goldberg is co-founder and vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. (CMPI) Along with Peter Pitts, Dr. Goldberg hosts the popular and controversial blog on the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare, www.drugwonks.com. Prior to founding CMPI, Dr. Goldberg was Director of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical Progress and Chairman of its 21st Century FDA Task Force, which examined the impact of the FDA's Critical Path Initiative on drug development and personalized medicine. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Review Online, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Sun and writes regularly for The Washington Times, the New York Post and The Weekly Standard. He is an expert on Medicare reform, comparative effectiveness and FDA's Critical Path Initiative. He is author, with Peter Pitts of Keeping Medicine Personal: A Critical Path for Comparative Effectiveness, a recent CMPI white paper, The Impact of Medicare's Anemia Drug Coverage Decision On Cancer Patients: Comparative Effectiveness vs. Patient Centered-Care, Insta-Americans: The Empowered (and Imperiled) Health Care Consumer in the Age of Internet Medicine, and with John Vernon, Alzheimer's Disease and Cost-effectiveness Analyses: Ensuring Good Value for Money?

John C. Goodman, Ph.D. National Center for Policy Analysis President

John C. Goodman founded the NCPA in 1983 and has served as President and CEO since the center's inception. The Wall Street Journal called Dr. Goodman "the father of Health Savings Accounts," and National Journal declared him "winner of the devolution derby" because his ideas on ways to transfer power from government to the people have had a significant impact on Capitol Hill. He is the author of nine books, including Handbook on State Health Care Reform , Lives at Risk: Single-Payer National Health Insurance Around the World; Leaving Women Behind: Modern Families, Outdated Laws; Economics of Public Policy, a widely used college textbook, and Patient Power: Solving America's Health Care Crisis, the condensed version of which sold 300,000 copies and is credited with playing a pivotal role in the defeat of the Clinton administration's plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system. He has authored numerous editorials in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily, Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Houston Chronicle, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and many others. Dr. Goodman received a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University. He has taught and done research at several colleges and universities including Columbia University, Stanford University, Dartmouth University, Southern Methodist University and the University of Dallas.

Linda Gorman Independence Institute Health Care Policy Center Director

Linda Gorman is a Senior Fellow at the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Golden, Colorado and director of the Institute's Health Care Center. A freelance writer and researcher, she was a weekly columnist for the Colorado Daily in Boulder. Her articles have appeared in local newspapers, professional journals, and publications such as The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. She is also a contributor to the State Policy Blog and a frequent guest on Independent Thinking. Ms. Gorman has worked as an economic researcher for a Denver mutual fund company, and was an adjunct professor and a principal investigator for several military manpower projects at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Her academic degrees are in economics.

Scott Gottlieb, M.D. American Enterprise Institute Resident Fellow

Scott Gottlieb, M.D., a practicing physician, has served in various capacities at the Food and Drug Administration, including senior adviser for medical technology; director of medical policy development; and, most recently, deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs. Dr. Gottlieb has also served as a senior policy adviser at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

John R. Graham Pacific Research Institute Director, Health Care Studies

John R. Graham is Director of Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, the only project to rank all 50 states' health laws and regulations according to free-market principles; and the editor of the book What States Can Do to Reform Health Care: A Free Market Primer, to which he contributed a chapter on pharmaceutical cost containment. Mr. Graham is also the primary author of the monthly Health Policy Prescriptions series, which addresses national health reform, and contributes to PRI's Capital Ideas series of short articles on public policy in California. He has written numerous articles covering diverse topics within health policy for periodicals including the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

David Gratzer, M.D. Manhattan Institute for Policy Research Senior Fellow

David Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His research interests include consumer-driven health care, Medicare and Medicaid, drug re-importation, and FDA reform. The late Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, wrote that Dr. Gratzer is "a natural-born economist." His most recent book, with foreword by Milton Friedman, is The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care (Encounter Books, October 2006). Previously, Dr. Gratzer authored the book Code Blue: Reviving Canada's Health Care System (ECW Press, 1999), which was awarded the $25,000 Donner Prize for best Canadian public policy book in 2000 and which is now in its fifth printing. Dr. Gratzer is also the editor of Better Medicine (ECW Press, 2002), a collection of essays from leading health care thinkers in Canada, the United States, and Europe. He is often quoted on health matters across North America. His writing has graced the pages of more than a dozen newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Weekly Standard. For his essays, Dr. Gratzer won the 2000 Felix A. Morley Journalism Competition, sponsored by George Mason University's Institute for the Humane Studies. Past winners include James Taranto (The Wall Street Journal) and Jonathan Karl (ABC). Dr. Gratzer has recently been cited in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, as well as by major media outlets across the United States and Canada. He has been interviewed by dozens of the nation's top media hosts and he has delivered keynote addresses at several major industry conferences, including the World Health Congress and the Consumer Driven Health Care Conference. He debated Congressman Gil Gutknecht on drug reimportation at the American Enterprise Institute, testified before Congress on the Health Care Choice Act, and keynoted the Long Island Health Care Summit after Senator Hillary Clinton cancelled because of a scheduling conflict.

Paul Guppy Washington Policy Center Vice President for Research

Paul Guppy is a graduate of Seattle University and holds graduate degrees in political science from Claremont Graduate University and the London School of Economics. He came to the Center in 1998 after 12 years on the staff of the U.S. Congress, including service as Legislative Director, Chief of Staff and with the House Appropriations Committee, with a focus on budget policy and federal spending. He is the author of numerous published studies and articles, including the Washington State Piglet Book, and is editor of the Policy Guide for Washington State. He specializes in state and local tax systems, health care reform and free market economics. He is a member of the King County Citizens Election Oversight Committee, the State Commission on Tax Preferences, and the Attorney General's Eminent Domain Task Force.

Robert B. Helms, Ph.D. American Enterprise Institute Director of Health Policy Studies

Robert B. Helms has served as a member of the Medicaid Commission as well as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation and deputy assistant secretary for health policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). An economist by training, he has written and lectured extensively on health policy and health economics, including the history of Medicare, the tax treatment of health insurance, and compared international health systems. He is the author or editor of several AEI books on health policy, including Medicare in the Twenty-First Century: Seeking Fair and Efficient Reform and Competitive Strategies in the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Christie Raniszewski Herrera American Legislative Exchange Council Director, Health and Human Services Task Forces

Christie Raniszewski Herrera is director of the Health and Human Services Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation's largest nonpartisan individual membership organization of state legislators. In this capacity, Ms. Herrera drives model legislation, conducts research, builds coalition support, and heightens media awareness in support of free-market health care policy. Since Ms. Herrera joined ALEC in 2005, 22 states have enacted model legislation drafted by ALEC's Health and Human Services Task Force. Ms. Herrera previously served two years as director of public affairs at The James Madison Institute (JMI) in Tallahassee, where she directed policy research, media relations, marketing, and events. Prior to joining JMI, Ms. Herrera spent three years at the Cato Institute, where she directed all policy events at Cato and on Capitol Hill. During the 2000 primary season, she was hired as an assistant budget analyst for Steve Forbes' presidential campaign. Ms. Herrera has testified before the Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Kansas, Idaho, Virginia, Texas, and Arizona legislatures, and she has been a repeat speaker for caucuses of the Florida and Tennessee House of Representatives. Her work has appeared in The Washington Times, Congress Daily, Health Care News, and Budget & Tax News, among other publications across the country. She has also been named a visiting fellow at the Independent Women's Forum as well as a featured blogger at the State Policy Network. Ms. Herrera holds a B.S. in communication studies and an M.S. in political science from Florida State University.

Regina E. Herzlinger, Ph.D. Harvard University Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration Chair at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and the first to serve on a number of corporate boards. She is widely recognized for her innovative research in health care, including her early predictions of the unraveling of managed care and the rise of consumer-driven health care and health care focused factories, two terms that she coined. Money has dubbed her the "Godmother" of consumer-driven health care. Her prior book, Consumer-Driven Health Care: Implications for Providers, Payers, and Policymakers (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 2004) received the 2004 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year award for History and Public Policy. Earlier research results were profiled by The Wall Street Journal (November 2002) and Managed Health Care Executive (June 2003, cover) Her July 2002 Harvard Business Review articles, "Let's Put Consumers in Charge of Health Care," was an Amazon eBooks best seller. Dr. Herzlinger has won the Consumers' for Health Care Choices Pioneer in Health Economics award, the American College of Heatlhcare Executives' Hamilton Book of the Year award twice, the Healthcare Financial Management Association's Board of Directors award, and Management College of Physician Executive. Modern Healthcare's readers regularly selected her as among the "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare" and Managed Healthcare named her one of health care's top ten thinkers. In recognition of her work in nonprofit accounting and control, she was named the first Chartered Institute of Management Accountants Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh. In addition, she has delivered many keynote addresses at annual meetings of large health care and business groups and been selected as one of the outstanding instructors of the Harvard Business School MBA Program.

John S. Hoff, Esq. Trustee, Galen Institute

John Hoff, founding board member of the Galen Institute, has a unique background that combines both health care policy and legal expertise. He served as the Health Attach�� of the United States Mission to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from 2005-2009. While stationed in Paris, Mr. Hoff represented the U.S. Government on a broad range of issues of health and science policy on the international level, including intellectual property rights, health information technology, medical innovation, and comparative health systems data. Prior to his work with UNESCO and the OECD, Mr. Hoff served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was in charge of the Office of Disability, Aging, and Long Term Care Policy. He led the Office's research on these issues, and also worked on additional policy initiatives such as reform of the medical malpractice litigation system, improvements in patient safety, and reform of the health care financing system. Before joining the Government, Mr. Hoff practiced law for more than 30 years, specializing in health law and policy. He has published a number of articles and drafted legislation on health care issues, including the first bill introduced in Congress for market-based health care reform. Mr. Hoff received his B.A. and LL.B. degrees from Harvard University. He is a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia and of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Paul Howard, Ph.D. Manhattan Institute for Policy Research Director, Center for Medical Progress

Paul Howard is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical Progress. He is the managing editor of Medical Progress Today, a web magazine devoted to chronicling the connection between private sector investment and biomedical innovation, market-friendly public policies, and improved health. As editor, he has written on a wide variety of medical policy issues, including medical malpractice, FDA reform, and Medicare policy initiatives. He is often quoted on health care issues and his columns have appeared in newspapers across the country, including the New York Post, Dallas Morning News, Investor's Business Daily and WashingtonPost.com. He is also a member of the Manhattan Institute's Project FDA, a committee of physician-scientists, economists, medical ethicists, and policy experts. Their purpose is to show how 21st-century technologies can help better inform FDA regulations and accelerate the drug-development and drug-approval process while maintaining drug safety. When Dr. Howard first joined the Manhattan Institute in 2000, he worked as the Deputy Director for the Center for Legal Policy where he edited research papers, managed legal policy analyses and organized conferences. Paul Howard received his Ph.D. in political science from Fordham University in 2003, and is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Eli Lehrer Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow

Eli Lehrer is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute where he directs CEI's studies of insurance and credit markets. Prior to joining CEI, Mr. Lehrer worked as speechwriter to United States Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.). He has previously worked as a manager in the Unisys Corporation's Homeland Security Practice, Senior Editor of The American Enterprise magazine, and as a fellow for The Heritage Foundation. He has spoken at Yale and George Washington Universities. He holds a B.A. (Cum Laude) from Cornell University and a M.A. (with honors) from The Johns Hopkins University where his Master's thesis focused on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Flood Insurance. Mr. Lehrer's work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Washington Times, Weekly Standard, National Review, The Public Interest, Salon.com, and dozens of other publications.

Merrill Matthews, Ph.D. Institute for Policy Innovation Visiting Scholar

Merrill Matthews Jr., Ph.D., is a visiting scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation. He is a public policy analyst specializing in health care, Social Security, welfare and Internet issues, and is the author of numerous studies in health policy, as well as other public policy issues. He is past president of the Health Economics Roundtable for the National Association for Business Economics, the largest trade association of business economists, and health policy advisor for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a bipartisan association of state legislators. Dr. Matthews serves as the medical ethicist for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center's Institutional Review Board for Human Experimentation, and has contributed chapters to two recently published books: Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate (Routledge, 1998) and The 21st Century Health Care Leader (Josey-Bass, 1998). He is a "Brain Trust" columnist for Investor's Business Daily and has been published in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, USA Today and The Washington Times. He is the political analyst for USA Radio Network and an occasional commentator for National Public Radio.

Mark B. McClellan, M.D., Ph.D. Brookings Institute Director, Engelbreg Center for Health Care Reform

A medical doctor and economist, Mark McClellan works on promoting high-quality, innovative and affordable health care. Once commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. McClellan now directs the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform.

Edmund J. McMahon Empire Center for New York State Policy Director

Since joining the Manhattan Institute in 2000, Mr. McMahon has studied the tax and spending policies of New York City and New York State and issues recommendations on how these policies can be reformed to increase economic growth. His recent work has included studies focused on state budget reform, public pensions, public-sector collective bargaining, the impact of federal tax changes proposed by the 2008 presidential candidates, and the state and local fiscal impact of the financial market meltdown. He has testified frequently before the New York State Legislature, and his articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, the Public Interest, The New York Times, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Newsday and the New York Sun, among other publications. McMahon's professional background includes more than 25 years as a senior policy maker and analyst of New York government. He has served as Deputy Commissioner for Tax Policy Analysis and Counselor to the Commissioner in the state Department of Taxation and Finance; Director of Minority Staff for the state Assembly Ways and Means Committee; vice chancellor for external relations at the State University of New York; and Director of Research for The Business Council's research arm, the Public Policy Institute. Earlier in his career, he was a reporter and columnist for the Albany Times Union, The Knickerbocker News and the White Plains Reporter Dispatch. A New York native, Mr. McMahon is a graduate of Villanova University.

David Merritt Center for Health Transformation Director of National Health Policy

David Merritt is Vice President and National Policy Director at the Center for Health Transformation and the Gingrich Group. The Center, headed by former Speaker Newt Gingrich, is a collaboration of leaders dedicated to transforming health and healthcare in America. Mr. Merritt advises Speaker Gingrich and leads the Center's work on national health reform and health information technology. Mr. Merritt's writing has been widely published, including the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Miami Herald. He is widely quoted in national and trade press, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and a frequent speaker in the industry. He has been a guest lecturer at the Yale School of Management and at Princeton University, at the invitation of visiting professor and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He is the editor of Paper Kills: Transforming Health and Healthcare with Information Technology, winner of the 2007 book of the year award by the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Mr. Merritt was a health policy adviser to the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, having served the same role with former Senator Fred Thompson. He served on Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's Health Information Technology Council. He also served on the Improving Quality Workgroup of Governor Kaine's Health Reform Commission. He has testified before state and federal hearings, including the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on privacy and health information technology. He serves on numerous advisory boards, as well as on the board of commissioners of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT).

Thomas P. Miller, Esq. American Enterprise Institute Resident Fellow

Thomas Miller is a former senior health economist for the Joint Economic Committee. He studies health care policy and regulation. A lawyer by training and a former journalist, Mr. Miller has worked on issues ranging from Medicare prescription drug benefits to medical savings accounts. While at the committee, he worked on social security reform legislation and organized a number of hearings that focused on reforms in private health care markets.

Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D. The Heritage Foundation Director, Center for Health Policy Studies

Robert Moffit has been a veteran of Washington policymaking for more than 25 years, and is Director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies. A former senior official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Personnel Management during the Reagan administration, Dr. Moffit specializes in Medicare reform, health insurance, and other health policy issues. Dr. Moffit has been a regular source for the media on health care issues. He has appeared on all major cable news channels and the broadcast networks. He has published in professional journals, such as Health Affairs and the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. His quotes and op-ed essays have appeared in all the major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Washington Times. Dr. Moffit's research also involves him in continuing debates over how to reform Medicare, how to ensure access to prescription drugs, and how to improve access to private health care coverage. Dr. Moffit continues to be an advocate of a consumer-driven approach: He recommends that the government adopt a new program for the baby boomers entering Medicare in 2011 similar to the consumer-driven Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP), which Dr. Moffit became familiar with while working at the federal Office of Personnel Management, the agency that runs the program. FEHBP allows members of Congress and federal workers to select coverage from a broad range of competing private health plans. Dr. Moffit has been an advocate of the free market principles of consumer choice and competition since the early 1990s, when he chastised Congress for keeping such a system of choice and competition "exclusively for itself and federal workers while considering ways to impose vastly inferior systems on almost all [other] Americans."

Nina Owcharenko The Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Health Policy Studies

Nina Owcharenko is a Senior Policy Analyst for health care at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies. In this position, Ms. Owcharenko researches and writes on a variety of health-care policy issues, including the uninsured, Medicaid, and prescription drugs. She has presented before numerous national, states and professional conferences, and has been published in noted publications, such as Health Affairs. She has also been a guest on dozens of radio and television programs advocating her opinions and policies. Ms. Owcharenko served for nearly a decade on Capitol Hill focusing on health-care issues. Before coming to Heritage in 2001, Ms. Owcharenko served as the Legislative Director for Rep. Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC). She started her Hill career working for Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC).

Leslie Paige Citizens Against Government Waste Vice President

Stephen T. Parente, Ph.D. University of Minnesota Academic Director, Medical Industry Leadership Institute

Stephen T. Parente, PhD, MPH, MS is the Director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute and an Associate Professor in the Finance Department at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota where he specializes in health economics, health information technology, and health insurance. He has served has a consultant to several of the largest organizations in health care delivery including: UnitedHealth Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, federal and state governments as well as medical technology firms. Dr. Parente is the principal investigator for an evaluation of consumer directed health plans using claims data from large employers. He is also examining the productivity and cost impact of information technology investments in hospitals and has recently concluded several studies on topics including: innovations from health savings accounts and medical banking technologies. Dr. Parente was a health policy advisor for the McCain 2008 Presidential Campaign and served as Legislative Fellow in the office of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D WV) during the Bush and Clinton Administrations' health reform initiatives. He has a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University.

Mark Pauly, Ph.D. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Health Care Systems

Sally C. Pipes Pacific Research Institute President and CEO

Sally Pipes addresses national and international audiences on health care, women's issues, and the economy. She has been interviewed on CNN's "Glenn Beck Show;" NBC's "Nightly News with Brian Williams"; CNN; "The O'Reilly Factor," Fox News; "Your World With Neil Cavuto", "The Today Show;" "Kudlow & Company on CNBC, "Dateline;" "Politically Incorrect;" "The Dennis Miller Show;" and other prominent programs. Ms. Pipes has written regular columns for Chief Executive and Investor's Business Daily. Currently, she writes a monthly column on health care issues for the Examiner newspapers. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Financial Times of London, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, New York Daily News, the Boston Globe, and the San Diego Union-Tribune, to name a few. Ms. Pipes' views on health care appeared in a special report of the world's 30 leading health care experts published by Forbes.com entitled, "Solutions: Health Care." She was quoted in Shape Magazine for her support of Consumer Directed Health Care. Ms. Pipes writes, speaks, debates, and gives invited testimony at the national and state levels on key health-care issues facing America. Topics include the false promise of a single-payer system as exists in Canada, pharmaceutical pricing, solving the problem of the uninsured, and strategies for consumer-driven health care. Ms. Pipes was one of Mayor Rudy Giuliani's four health care advisors in his bid for the Republican nomination for president. She appears in Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" and has participated in prominent debates and public forums, testified before five committees of the California and Oregon legislatures, appeared on popular television programs, participated in talk radio shows nationwide, and had 127 opeds published on health care issues in 2007.

Peter Pitts Center for Medicine in the Public Interest President

Peter Pitts is President and co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and Partner/Director Global Healthcare, Porter Novelli. Prior to founding CMPI, Mr. Pitts was a Senior Fellow for healthcare studies at the Pacific Research Institute. From 2002-2004 Mr. Pitts was FDA's Associate Commissioner for External Relations, serving as senior communications and policy adviser to the Commissioner. He supervised FDA's Office of Public Affairs, Office of the Ombudsman, Office of Special Health Issues, Office of Executive Secretariat, and Advisory Committee Oversight and Management. He served on the agency's obesity working group and counterfeit drug taskforce. His book, Become Strategic or Die, is widely recognized as a cutting edge study of how leadership, in order to be successful over the long term, must be combined with strategic vision and ethical practice. He is the editor of the new book, Coincidence or Crisis, a discussion of global prescription medicine counterfeiting. Mr. Pitts has served as an adjunct professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Butler University.

Roy Ramthun Council for Affordable Health Insurance Visiting Fellow

Roy Ramthun is a Visiting Fellow at the Council for Affordable Health Insurance and President of HSA Consulting Services, a health care consulting practice specializing in Health Savings Accounts and consumer-driven health care issues. Prior to these positions, Mr. Ramthun was the Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House. As a member of the National Economic Council staff, Mr. Ramthun was the senior health policy advisor to President George W. Bush regarding health care issues involving the Internal Revenue Code (primarily Health Savings Accounts), Medicare, Medicaid, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Before joining the President's staff, Mr. Ramthun was the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for health initiatives. In this role, he led Treasury's implementation of Health Savings Accounts after they were enacted into law in December, 2003. Prior to joining the Treasury Department, Mr. Ramthun held a variety of positions during his eight-year tenure at Humana Inc., one of the nation's largest health insurance companies, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. From 1990-1995, Mr. Ramthun was a health care analyst with the Republican Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. Mr. Ramthun began his career in Federal service in 1987 as a Presidential Management Intern (PMI). Mr. Ramthun holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Science Degree in Public Health from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).

Sally Satel, M.D. American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow

Sally Satel, M.D., a practicing psychiatrist and lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine, examines mental health policy as well as political trends in medicine. She has served on the advisory committee of the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and was a member of the Fowler Commission that investigated sexual misconduct at the U.S. Air Force Academy in summer 2003. Her books range from PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine (Basic Books, 2001) and One Nation under Therapy (St. Martin's Press, 2005), coauthored with Christina Hoff Sommers, to When Altruism Isn't Enough: The Case for Compensating Organ Donors (AEI Press, 2009). Her interest in transplant policy stems from her experience as the recipient of a donated kidney in 2006.

Greg Scandlen The Heartland Institute Director, Consumers for Health Care Choices

Greg Scandlen is a senior fellow of The Heartland Institute and founder and director of Consumers for Health Care Choices, a non-partisan, non-profit membership organization aimed at empowering consumers in the health care system. In April 2008, Heartland and Consumers for Health Care Choices merged, with CHCC becoming a program of The Heartland Institute. Mr. Scandlen is an accomplished writer, researcher, and public speaker. He is considered one of the nation's experts on health care financing, insurance regulation, and employee benefits. He testifies frequently before Congress and appears on such television shows as the O'Reilly Factor, NBC Nightly News, ABC News, and CNN. Mr. Scandlen gives three dozen speeches a year to organizations representing employers and labor, hospitals and physicians, insurers, and pharmaceutical companies. He has published many papers on topics such as health care costs, insurance reform, employee benefits, individual insurance programs, HSAs and HRAs, and every aspect of consumer-driven health care. Mr. Scandlen has worked for several Washington-based think tanks, including the Cato Institute, National Center for Policy Analysis, and Galen Institute. He was president of the Health Benefits Group, a benefits consulting firm, and founder and executive director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, a trade association of insurance companies. He also spent 12 years in the Blue Cross Blue Shield system, most recently as director of state research at the national association.

Dennis Smith The Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow in Health Care Reform

Dennis G. Smith is the Senior Fellow in Health Care Reform at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies, where he researches ways to improve the Medicaid program, the future of long-term care and state health care reform initiatives. Before joining Heritage in May 2008, Mr. Smith was the director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations. He had been in charge of Medicaid - a health program for poor people that is managed by the states and funded jointly by the states and federal government - for nearly seven years. In this position, he directed a staff of more than 400 people and supervised more than $350 billion in federal programs, including the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Prior to joining the Health and Human Services Department, Mr. Smith was Director of Virginia's Department of Medical Assistance Services, and served in a variety of positions on Capitol Hill, including: health and welfare analyst at the Senate Finance Committee; legislative assistant to Sen. William Roth, R-Del.; and professional staff member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

Jack Strayer National Center for Policy Analysis Vice President for External Affairs

Joel White Galen Institute Visiting Senior Fellow

Joel White is president of JCWhite Consulting, focusing on health and tax issues, and is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Galen Institute. Most recently, he was the Staff Director of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee where he was responsible for legislation involving Medicare reform and prescription drugs, HIPAA, insurance, and health tax issues. Prior to joining the committee, he was a Legislative Assistant for Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-PA) where he was responsible for health, retirement, banking and budget issues. He also worked as the Senior Legislative Assistant to Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), where he covered health, economic growth and development and retirement issues. Mr. White has been a member of the National Economist's Club for eight years and is co-author of Facts and Figures on Government Finance, which brings together data on public finance at all levels of government, with comparisons of taxing and spending levels spanning a half-century.

Gail Wilensky, Ph.D. Project HOPE Senior Fellow

Gail Wilensky, an economist, and a Senior Fellow at Project HOPE analyzes and develops policies relating to health care reform and to ongoing changes in the health care environment. Dr. Wilensky is a Commissioner on the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies and its Governing Council; is Vice Chair of the Maryland Health Care Commission; and serves as a trustee of the Combined Benefits Fund of the United Mineworkers of America, the American Heart Association and the National Opinion Research Center. She is an advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund, immediate past chair of the Board of Directors of Academy Health and is a director on several corporate boards. From 1990 - 1992, she was Administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, directing the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Dr. Wilensky also served as Deputy Assistant to President (GHW) Bush for Policy Development, advising him on health and welfare issues from 1992 to 1993.

Brian Williams National Center for Policy Analysis Legislative Director

Brian Williams is legislative director at the National Center for Policy Analysis. Mr. Williams leads the NCPA's Washington, D.C. policy outreach efforts, representing the NCPA and its public policy issues to the President, Congress, Capitol Hill staffers and other government constituencies. Mr. Williams has more than 10 years of experience in government relations and as a Capitol Hill staffer. Prior to joining the NCPA he was the director of government relations for the American Public Health Association and previously the manager of government relations for the American Heart Association. As a Capitol Hill staffer Mr. Williams served in the offices of Reps. James Hansen (R-UT) and Jay Dickey (R-AR), as well as then-Senator Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID).

Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D. Pacific Research Institute Senior Fellow

Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, the President of Benjamin Zycher Economics Associates, and an adjunct Professor of Economics and Business at the Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics, California State University, Channel Islands. In addition, he is a member of the advisory board of the quarterly journal Regulation, of the advisory council of USA for Innovation, and the advisory council of Consumer Alert. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California Los Angeles (1979) and a Master of Public Policy from the University of California Berkeley (1974). Dr. Zycher has done considerable work on energy and environmental policy, on health care policy and the economics of the pharmaceutical sector, on the economics of the insurance sector, and on such varying topics in international economics as counterterrorism policy, resource dependence, and the risk of "shocks." He has done a substantial amount of work as well on the economic and political effects of government regulation, taxation, spending, and debt, on benefit/cost analysis of public expenditures, on the effects of economic institutions and performance upon economic growth and resource use, on long-term trends in economic performance and military capability, on the use of trade policy in pursuit of foreign policy goals, and on measures of burdensharing within alliances. Dr. Zycher's other work is on voter information and voting behavior, and on choices among constitutional institutions. Among his publications are "Defense Economics" and "OPEC" in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (2008).