The U.S. Health Care System 'In Irons' — in Which Direction Will It Emerge?

September 25, 2007
Speaker: Stuart N. Altman, Ph.D., Dean, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management and Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health Policy, Brandeis University
Presented by: the Law-Medicine Center

Summary: Oliver C. Schroeder, Jr. Scholar-in-Residence Lecture
In sailing, there is a term, "In Irons" that describes a boat caught between winds pushing in opposite directions. The sails are flapping wildly but the boat is not going in either direction. This term could be used to describe the current U.S. health care system. The cost of private and public health insurance has been growing at or near double digit rates; the number of uninsured continues to creep upwards; and persistent quality of care problems plague the system.

Is the U.S. health care system directionless?
How did we get into this situation?
Is there something we could do to get the health care system moving in a different direction?
If we are not skillful at controlling our own destiny, which direction are we likely to head?
Do we know in what direction we would like to go?

Stuart Altman is an economist whose primary research interests are federal and state health policy. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. degree in Economics from UCLA and has taught at Brown University and the Graduate School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley.

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