Speaker biographies
Joseph Antos is the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at AEI. He also is an adjunct professor at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Antos’s research focuses on the economics of health policy, including Medicare reform, health insurance regulation, and the uninsured. He is the editor, with Alice Rivlin, of Restoring Fiscal Sanity 2007: The Health Spending Challenge (Brookings Institution Press, 2007). Before joining AEI, Mr. Antos was assistant director for health and human resources at the Congressional Budget Office, and he held senior positions in the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Management and Budget, and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Robert L. Bixby is executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization that advocates fiscal responsibility. The group is cochaired by former senators Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) and Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.). Mr. Bixby has been with the coalition since its inception in 1992, serving as national field director and policy director before becoming executive director in 1999. He frequently represents Concord’s views on budget and entitlement reform policy at congressional hearings and in the national media. For the past two years, he has coordinated the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, a joint initiative of the Concord Coalition, the Budgeting for National Priorities Project at the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and former comptroller general of the United States David M. Walker. The tour has visited more than thirty-five cities in all regions of the country, explaining in plain terms why budget analysts of diverse perspectives are increasingly alarmed by the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Richard S. Foster is chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). As such, he is responsible for all actuarial and other financial analyses for the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In addition, Mr. Foster and the staff of the Office of the Actuary prepare the widely used national health expenditure account data and projections; produce the hospital input price index, Medicare Economic Index, and other price indexes used to update Medicare payments to providers; and calculate the Medicare Advantage payment benchmarks for private health plans that contract with Medicare. Mr. Foster became Chief Actuary in February 1995; prior to this, he served as deputy chief actuary for the Social Security Administration for thirteen years. He is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries (1980) and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, American Statistical Association, American Economic Association, National Academy of Social Insurance, and Senior Executives Association. He has written numerous articles and reports on Medicare and Social Security issues, and he has received a number of awards, including the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Outstanding Alumnus of the Year in 1997; the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award in 1998 from President Bill Clinton; the CMS Administrator’s Achievement Awards in 1999 and 2003; the Presidential Distinguished Executive Award in 2001 from President George W. Bush; the College of Wooster Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006; and the Robert J. Myers Public Service Award from the American Academy of Actuaries in 2006. In 2007, the readers of Modern Healthcare voted Mr. Foster the sixteenth most influential person in health care in the United States.
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. Mr. Helms is the editor of several AEI books on health policy, including American Health Policy: Critical Issues for Reform (AEI Press, 1993); Health Policy Reform: Competition and Controls (AEI Press, 1993); Competitive Strategies in the Pharmaceutical Industry (AEI Press, 1996); and Medicare in the 21st Century: Seeking Fair and Efficient Reform (AEI Press, 1999). 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.
Gail Wilensky is a senior fellow at Project HOPE, an international health education foundation, where she analyzes and develops policies relating to health care reform and ongoing changes in the health care environment. From 1990 to 1992, she was administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, overseeing the Medicare and Medicaid programs. She also served as deputy assistant for policy development to President George H. W. Bush, advising him on health and welfare issues from 1992 to 1993. From 1997 to 2001, she chaired the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and from 1995 to 1997, she chaired the Physician Payment Review Commission. From 2001 to 2003, she cochaired the President’s Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation’s Veterans, which covered health care for both veterans and military retirees. Ms. Wilensky testifies frequently before congressional committees; acts as an adviser to members of Congress and other elected officials; and speaks nationally and internationally before professional, business, and consumer groups.
View Event Details
