U.S. Health Care Reform: Images and Realities of Costs, Quality, and Access

Three of the country’s leading specialists in health policy,
economics and health communication will address the implementation and
effects of the Affordable Care Act, and consider how political messaging
by both proponents and opponents of the ACA is helping shape public
opinion and frame the terms of the debate. 

John Dankosky, News Director of WNPR and radio host of “Where
We Live” (CT Public Broadcasting Network) will moderate a
question/answer discussion with the panelists and audience following the
presentations.

Panelists:

Don H. Taylor, Jr., Associate Professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and Duke Medical Center.  Professor Taylor’s papers have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, BMJ, Health Affairs, The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and Social Science and Medicine. 
His ongoing research is in the area of patient decision-making and
Medicare hospice policy, and he is currently writing a book on the role
of health care policy in developing a long-range balanced budget in the
U.S.  He was named a member of the HRSA Negotiated Rulemaking Committee
that was created by the Affordable Care Act to reconsider how the
federal government identifies Health Professional Shortage Areas and
Medically Underserved Areas.

Austin Frakt, Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Boston University School of Medicine.
Since 2003, Dr. Frakt has served as a Health Economist in Health Care
Financing & Economics at the VA Boston Healthcare System. He joined
the BU School of Public Health as Assistant Professor in the Department
of Health Policy and Management in 2007 and the BU School of Medicine in
2011. Dr. Frakt’s primary research interests include the policy,
utilization, and financing of public health care programs with a recent
focus on VA and Medicare prescription drug policy.  His presentation
will address economic questions about the ACA and its effects and
explore possible implications for costs, access and quality of health
care of cost shifting, payer and/or provider consolidation and changing
structures of competition.

Sarah Gollust, Assistant Professor of Public Health Administration and Policy, University of Minnesota School of Public Health. 
Dr. Gollust is a political scientist whose research focuses on the
intersection of media, public opinion, and population health.  Dr.
Gollust received her BA in Biology from Wesleyan in 2001 and her PhD
from the University of Michigan. Her dissertation work examined the
political implications of media framing of type 2 diabetes. Dr.
Gollust’s presentation will address the significance of media/marketing
strategies in framing the country’s current national debate over
“Obamacare.”  

Assistant Professors Erika Franklin Fowler (Government Dept./Director of Wesleyan Media Project) and Damien Sheehan-Connor (Economics Dept.) are the co-chairs of this event.