Kenneth E. Thorpe, Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Chair, Department of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health Emory University
Biography provided by participant
KENNETH E. THORPE, Ph.D., Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy & Management, in the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He also co-directs the Emory Center on Health Outcomes and Quality. He was the Vanselow Professor of Health Policy and Director, Institute for Health Services Research at Tulane University.
He was previously Professor of Health Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; an Associate Professor and Director of the Program on Health Care Financing and Insurance at the Harvard University School of Public Health and Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Public Health at Columbia University. Dr. Thorpe has also held Visiting Faculty positions at Pepperdine University and Duke University. Professor Thorpe was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1993 to 1995. In this capacity, he coordinated all financial estimates and program impacts of President Clinton's health care reform proposals for the White House. He also directed the administration's estimation efforts in dealing with Congressional health care reform proposals during the 103rd and 104th sessions of Congress.
As an academic, he has testified before several committees in the U.S. Senate and House on health care reform and insurance issues. In 1991, Professor Thorpe was awarded the Young Investigator Award presented to the most promising health services researcher in the country under age 40 by the Association for Health Services Research. He also received the Hettleman Award for academic and scholarly research at the University of North Carolina and was provided an "Up and Comers" award by Modern Healthcare.
As in most debates, especially those that aim to make significant changes in policy, balance is a key to success, and that could not be more true than in answering the question of how best to change individual behavior from unhealthy to healthy through wellness programs. There is a long line of corporate programs that are making a difference in the lives of their employees including Johnson & Johnson, Pitney Bowes, Caterpillar and yes Safeway. Using incentives and rewards, these companies and many more are improving the health of their employees by helping them quit smoking, lose weight, exercise more and… Read more
Ken Thorpe: This presents a challenge because it has both political and policy questions that must be addressed. But there may be a way. Most agree that we shouldn’t remove the chain of accountability that exists today. But Congress has not shown the will to make the kind of changes that many agree need to be made to reduce costs in Medicare. It is from this circumstance that the idea of a MedPac on steroids, as its name has become, has emerged. Here’s an idea: Congress sets the broad strategy and targets for cost reductions in Medicare, then an… Read more
I think Mr. Elmendorf's comments provide us a new opportunity to improve the legislation. To make the costs of coverage sustainable over time, we need to find sustained approaches for slowing the growth in health care spending. The congressional proposals have elements of cost controls in them, but they are largely pilot projects and too small to make the major changes in payment and our delivery system to really matter. Congress now needs to be bold in three areas--expedited use of bundling payments, real delivery system reforms using community health teams and other approaches to care coordination and streamling the… Read more
The fact that the provider community continues to play a positive role in pushing health care reform ahead is positive news. Certainly some of the items under consideration could be done by the industry on their own--reducing adverse events and errors--but others will require legislative action. The best proposals coming forward are those that would reduce both underlying clinical and administrative costs as well as payments. Reducing medical errors through effective automated patient safety programs have reduced both underlying treatment costs and medical malpractice claims. The pharmaceutical industry's decision to agree to deeper brand name drug price discounts is another… Read more
With the introduction of the co-op idea, Senator Conrad has made a suggestion that may provide an opportunity to move past he hyper partisanship created by the public plan option. However, so far, the co-op discussion has focused on how it should function (member owned, non-profit, an elected board, and return surpluses to member or reinvest them) and not as much on how it would deliver care. And in this debate, reforming the delivery care system is at the center and is the key to reducing costs and improving quality. Therefore, we need to begin to shift the discussion on… Read more
Part of the reason the 1993 effort to reform our health care system failed was because the debate focused almost exclusively on expanding coverage to those without insurance. Covering every American is a critical objective, but Americans who had health insurance in ’93 were concerned that the changes being suggested would change their insurance in a way they did not like or want. This time around President Obama has wisely focused on reducing heath care costs. Cost of health care affects everyone – those with insurance and those without – and even if we attempt to provide coverage to every… Read more
The pledge by leading health-care groups earlier this week to reduce spending by $2 trillion signifies an enormous change. In the 1990s, when I worked on the Clinton administration’s failed health campaign, the overall mood was negative and skeptical. Now, there is a tremendous sense of momentum. People don't want to give up on the possibility of achieving comprehensive health reform. These meetings have helped keep industry groups engaged, rather than fomenting opposition. However, it’s important to recognize that to actually achieve reform the details will matter. The key question is will the federal government be able to measure and… Read more
Biography provided by participant
