Newly Formed Panel Seeks To Help Shape Medicare Reform Efforts
The newly formed Partnership for the Future of Medicare, a six-member private and independent advisory board, will seek to provide research "within a year's time" to help policymakers reform the federal health program, The Hill's "Healthwatch" reports.
The panel's leaders -- Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and Ken Thorpe, chair of Emory University's Department of Health Policy and a former HHS official -- said the group intends to contribute new facts to old policy debates.
Health insurers UnitedHealth Group and Humana have provided seed money for the board, according to "Healthwatch."
Holtz-Eakin said, "This is not about bringing a proposal to the table that we can sell," adding, "The research will have nothing to do with our particular ideologies or our histories on different proposals. We want data on improving the program" (Viebeck, "Healthwatch," The Hill, 10/19).
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