Speaker Biographies
Paul Fronstin is a senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute. He is also director of the Institute’s Health Research and Education Program. Mr. Fronstin’s research interests include trends in employment-based health benefits, consumer-driven health benefits, the uninsured, retiree health benefits, employee benefits and taxation, and public opinion about health care. He currently serves on the advisory council for the Emeriti Retirement Health Program.
Robert B. Helms is a resident scholar in health policy studies at AEI. He has written and lectured extensively on health policy, health economics, and the economics of the pharmaceutical industry. Mr. Helms currently participates in the Consensus Group, an informal task force that is developing market-oriented health reform concepts. He also serves on the National Advisory Council for Healthcare Research and Quality of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and on the Department of Health and Human Services’ Medicaid Commission. Mr. Helms is the editor of several AEI books on health policy, including American Health Policy: Critical Issues for Reform; Health Policy Reform: Competition and Controls; Competitive Strategies in the Pharmaceutical Industry; and Medicare in the 21st Century: Seeking Fair and Efficient Reform. He has also written on the history of Medicare, the tax treatment of health insurance, and international comparisons of health systems. From 1981 to 1989 he served as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation and deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Regina Herzlinger is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Medical Progress. Ms. Herzlinger writes on consumer-driven health care and is the author of Who Killed Health Care: America’s $2 Trillion Medical Problem—and the Consumer-Driven Cure (McGraw-Hill, June 2007). She is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at 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 has been 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.
Michael O’Grady is a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago and a principal of O’Grady Health Policy LLC. He served as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2003 to 2005 and was previously the senior health economist on the majority staff of both the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Economic Committee. He also was a senior analyst for three Medicare commissions established by Congress. Throughout his career, Mr. O’Grady has been instrumental in the development of key federal policies and programs tackling some of the most complex and controversial health issues facing the country.
Joel White owns his own Washington, D.C.–based consulting firm, JCWhite Consulting, and provides clients with strategic, political, and policy advice to help navigate Congressional and regulatory processes. His focus is primarily on health and tax issues. In addition, Mr. White is a visiting senior fellow at the Galen Institute, which works to promote a more informed public debate over ideas that advance individual freedom, consumer choice, and competition in the health sector.
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