Foege Attends National Health Care Cost Seminar

State Representative Ro Foege (D-Mt. Vernon) was among seventeen state health policy leaders invited to participate in a seminar for senior state health officials, “What States Can Do To Control Rising Health Care Costs?” sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seminar featured presentations by three of the nation's leading health policy economists: Stuart Altman, Professor of National Health Policy at Brandeis University; Paul Ginsburg, President for the Center for Studying Health Systems Change; and Ken Thorpe, Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Chair, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

For a day and a half, participants exchanged ideas and information about the growing health care cost crisis in America. Participants noted that health care cost increases are cyclical and result from many causes, including increased utilization, new technology and prescription drugs, and increasing costs of hospitals. It was noted that while considerable public attention has been given to the rising cost of prescription drugs, last year hospital costs outstripped prescription drugs as the single biggest cost driver of health care cost inflation. It was predicted that health care could increase to become 24% of the gross domestic product if not curbed. Currently, health care costs account for 17% of the gross domestic product in the U.S.

Participants discussed how to manage the consumption of health care, deliberating the strengths and weaknesses of proposals to increase cost sharing, to better manage prescription drug spending, to improve preventive services, and to change the system of health care to make it more efficient and effective. The seminar members also talked about how to manage the delivery of health care, discussing developments in disease management and how to manage the market and delivery systems. The discussion included regulatory oversight, volume purchasing, and the reduction in patient safety. Also considered were the current initiatives moving in the direction of insurance products providing only catastrophic coverage and defined contributions.

Foege stated, “The meeting provided a unique opportunity for policy makers from different states to work together with some of the nation's leading experts to explore ways in which each of our states can appropriately address health care cost containment. The lessons I learned at the meeting will be of benefit in my work in the next legislative session, especially as struggle to find solutions to the mounting Medicaid budget”.

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