Kaiser Conversations on Health with CMS Administrator Mark McClellan 9/29/2004
Barbara Jordan Conference Center, Washington, D.C.
This discussion is the third webcast in a new series, Kaiser Conversations on Health. Visit our previous webcasts with DATA Co-founder Bono and AARP CEO Bill Novelli.
View Webcast
( video
)
(
transcript )
CMS Administrator Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., spoke with Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President and Senior Advisor for Communications Jackie Judd about challenges in federal health policy, including implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, rising health care costs and recent increases in the number of uninsured Americans.
Dr. McClellan took questions emailed by people viewing the live webcast as well as questions from audience members.
On pay-for-performance: "We've seen a lot of experiences of health plans outside of Medicare getting some big payoffs when they implement some elements of pay-for-performance. ... Pay-for-performance isn't the be-all end all, but when doctors are not being rewarded and not being encouraged to take steps that improve quality and may even reduced costs, something is wrong with our system."
On the politics of implementing the Medicare drug benefit: "Below the surface, there's a lot of interest in moving things along, finding the best ways to do this. Some of the best ideas we've had about implementing the drug card, implementing the drug benefit have come from Democrats and people outside the Administration who are publicly pretty critical of the whole approach to undertaking these improvements."
On SCHIP funding: "With $10 billion in the bank, with the maximum projections about costs of continuing coverage for kids in SCHIP programs now far short of that---$5 billion or so left over---we think it would be a good idea to try make a push to use more of this money to get more eligible kids enrolled in the program. There are more than a million kids who are currently eligible for SCHIP and who are not signed up and who are not getting coverage today. We need to do something about that."
About Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D.
McClellan, a board-certified internal medicine physician, is a former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. He also has served on the President's Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on domestic economic issues and was a senior policy director for health care and related economic issues, and is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, supervising economic analysis and policy development on a wide range of domestic policy issues.
Sign up for
email alerts and stay informed about upcoming HealthCasts, and the latest health policy issues, news, and events.
Change Your Video Preferences
