April 8, 2005

Speaker Biographies

Joseph Antos is the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at AEI and an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. Prior to coming to AEI, Mr. Antos served as assistant director for health and human resources at the Congressional Budget Office, the division within the CBO that provides Congress with analyses of proposed changes to federal programs and policies in areas such as health, income security, education, employment, and housing. Mr. Antos was the director of the Office of Research and Demonstrations and deputy director of the Office of the Actuary at the Health Care Financing Administration. He served as deputy chief of staff and the principal deputy assistant secretary for management and budget at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Cathi Callahan, an actuary with a background in mathematics and economics, joined Actuarial Research Corporation in 1986. She has worked with many of the major micro data bases used in health services research, and has designed and implemented computer models for the analysis of national health expenditure patterns and modeling coverage and spending under public and private programs. Ms. Callahan's recent work has been concentrated on the uninsured and low income populations; the privately insured population and the private health insurance market; and the elderly and near elderly populations. She has assisted the Department of Health and Human Services in estimating and examining subpopulations lacking health insurance. Ms. Callahan has modeled eligibility for coverage of children under state Medicaid programs as well as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, state, and private sector programs. This has included actuarial equivalence options and impacts, premium estimates under alternative coverage and selection bias scenarios, and target population estimates reflecting adjustments to Current Population Survey data for filing unit refinements and undercount analysis.

John Czajka is a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, where he has been employed since the fall of 1978. Much of his research since the late 1990s has focused on issues related to the measurement of health insurance coverage and the analysis of both trends in coverage and the dynamics of coverage. Throughout his career, he has devoted attention to the quality of data collected in household surveys and to statistical and policy uses of program administrative records. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and is currently president of the Washington Statistical Society.

Linda Giannarelli is a senior research associate in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute. She is the project director for the maintenance and development of the TRIM3 microsimulation model—funded by the Department of Health and Human Services/Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation—and the co-director of the HHS Administration for Children and Families-funded project examining the impact of marriage or cohabitation on a broad range of government tax and transfer programs.

Michael Davern is the research director at the State Health Access Data Assistance Center and assistant professor in the Division of Health Services Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Mr. Davern uses his expertise in federally-sponsored population surveys to help state analysts use estimates of coverage and access produced by national surveys to inform state health policy. He also consults with states collecting their own survey data on sampling, weighting, data editing/imputation, data analysis strategies, and survey instrument design. He has published several articles recommending improvements in both state and federal surveys addressing issues of coverage and access. Before joining SHADAC, Mr. Davern worked as a statistician for the U.S. Census Bureau where he conducted evaluations of the Current Population Survey, the American Community Survey, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. His research interests include survey research methodology, health insurance coverage, labor markets, policy analysis, and social networks.

Charles Nelson is the assistant division chief for income, poverty, and health statistics in the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division at the U.S. Bureau of the Census. He is the former chief of the Income Statistics Branch at the Census Bureau. In his twenty-eight years as a Census Bureau analyst, Mr. Nelson has authored numerous reports and research papers on such subjects as the characteristics of households receiving non-cash benefits, after-tax income, pension coverage and retirement income; health insurance coverage; and the effect of taxes, government transfers, and non-cash benefits on the distribution of income and prevalence of poverty.

Michael J. O'Grady is the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he is the principal adviser to the secretary of HHS on policy development in health, disability, aging, human services, and science and data; and provides advice and analysis on economic policy. Prior to his appointment, Mr. O'Grady served as the senior health economist on the majority staff of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the U.S. Congress. At the Committee, his work focused primarily on Medicare reform, the uninsured, and other national health issues. Prior to joining the JEC, Mr. O'Grady was a senior research director at Project Hope's Center for Health Affairs, where his work focused on Medicare reform issues. He also served as a health analyst with the Senate Finance Committee's majority staff under Chairman Bill Roth (R-DE) and with the Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare (Breaux/Thomas). Mr. O’Grady has also worked at the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the Physician Payment Review Commission, the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, and the Office for Civil Rights in both the Department of Health Education and Welfare and the Department of Education.

Chris L. Peterson is an analyst in social legislation at the Congressional Research Service. He is CRS’s expert to Congress on health insurance survey estimates. He has authored numerous reports on a range of health policy topics and works closely with congressional staff to provide analytical and quantitative input on legislative proposals. Prior to joining CRS, Mr. Peterson held various positions at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), ranging from health services research to planning and evaluation for the director. Before joining AHRQ, he worked for the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.

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