Medicaid financing to be topic of major public forum

Rising health-care costs and diminishing health insurance coverage will be among critical issues debated by leading medical policy experts at a daylong public forum on Medicaid financing June 8 in the School of Medicine’s Eric P. Newman Education Center.

Among the speakers will be Tommy Thompson, former U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services and candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, as well as administrators from major research hospitals and a range of academic, government and think-tank policy experts.

“This is a major conference addressing Medicaid, the principal federal and state program for financing health care for the poor, including children, at a crucial time in its history,” said program co-organizer William A. Peck, M.D., the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine and director of the University’s Center for Health Policy. “Concerns about quality, high and rising costs, accessibility, capacity and scope of coverage have placed Medicaid at the forefront of the U.S. health-care agenda.”

Titled “Medicaid Financing: Challenges for Missouri and the Nation,” the conference is free and open to the public; seating is limited and registration is required. The conference begins at 7:30 a.m. with a continental breakfast and registration and closes with a reception from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor, will discuss “Medicaid in the United States” at 8:30 a.m.

The program includes panel discussions by distinguished contributors on the following topics:

• “Financing Medicaid: Reforms, The Federal-State Relationship”

• “Medicaid and Health Care Providers”

• “Free Market versus Public Provision of Health Care”

• “The Future of Medicaid”

The event is hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; the Missouri Foundation for Health; the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy in Arts & Sciences; and the Center for Health Policy.

For a full agenda, background on speakers and details on registration, visit wc.wustl.edu. For more information, call Melinda Warren at 935-5652 or e-mail warren@wustl.edu.