The Alliance for Health Reform, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and several cosponsors held the final event in a three-part series of discussions on costs, the factors driving them up and what (if anything) can be done about them.

This briefing and others in the series take an in-depth look at a select few of the most often cited health care cost drivers. This briefing focuses on efforts to improve health and health care at lower costs.

Marilyn Tavenner, Acting CMS Administrator, gives an overview of these efforts, followed by Karen Davis at the Commonwealth Fund and Scott Serota at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, who provides perspectives from the field in terms of what is working. Paul Ginsburg discusses his new paper related to policy strategies to help bend the health care cost curve, followed by a reactor panel of individuals with a variety of perspectives on these issues.

The panel includes:

• Jim Guest of Consumer Reports
• David Pryor of Ascension Health
• Gerry Shea of AFL-CIO
• Anne Weiss of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation

The briefing concludes with a discussion among a roundtable of leaders in the health care field, touching on ideas for next steps to reduce health care costs.

Ed Howard of the Alliance for Health Reform moderates the event.

Video

 Agenda (.pdf)