MEDIA ADVISORY: UCSF Health Reform Experts Available For Comment
Covered California, the state agency implementing the federal Affordable Care Act, will begin enrolling residents into the new health insurance marketplace on October 1.
UCSF has a number of health policy experts available to discuss the potential impacts of the health insurance exchange.
- Josh Adler, MD, chief medical officer for UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, can speak to the Affordable Care Act’s effect on hospitals, on primary care, on payment reform and organizational realignment efforts such as Accountable Care Organizations. He directs the doctors who provide patient care at UCSF and oversees the quality of medical services and the integration of patient care, education and research.
- Andrew Bindman, MD, professor in the Department of Medicine and the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy, worked as a staff member in Congress to help draft provisions in the Affordable Care Act. He currently is involved in implementing the law and evaluating its impact as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington and as the director of the California Medicaid Research Institute in California. Bindman can talk about a wide range of topics related to health reform, including the provisions related to coverage expansion, primary care workforce expansion, health care delivery reform, and the challenges nationally and in California in implementing the law.
- Claire Brindis, Dr. PH, director of the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, is an expert on women’s health services, including the role of preventive health care, such as elimination of out-of-pocket cost sharing for preventive health services (e.g. contraceptive care), under the Accountable Care Act. In addition, she has conducted research focused on the role of the Act in expanding health care coverage for young adults up to age 26 as part of their parents’ health plans.
- Janet Coffman, PhD, adjunct professor, UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine and the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, can speak to evidence-based medicine and health insurance coverage especially as it relates to prevention and California. Coffman is an expert on the health care workforce and serves as the principal analyst for medical effectiveness for the California Health Benefits Review Program, which provides the California State Legislature with data on the medical, cost and public health impacts of proposed health insurance benefit mandates and repeals.
- Catherine Hoffman, ScD, RN, FAAN, deputy director, California Medicaid Research Institute, can field questions about Medicaid in relation to the health exchanges, such as who will be newly eligible for Medicaid. The California Medicaid Research Institute is based at the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.
- Joanne Spetz, PhD, professor, UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, and UCSF School of Nursing, and faculty, UCSF Center for the Health Professions, can speak to primary care access and workforce issues.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy, a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic biomedical, translational and population sciences, as well as a preeminent biomedical research enterprise and two top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.