Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture on Jan. 11: Rowe to Broaden Perspectives on Health Care

As California's governor and lawmakers prepare to hammer out a plan for universal health insurance coverage, health economics expert Jack Rowe, MD, will offer a broader perspective on America's health care crisis when he delivers the second UCSF Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture at noon on Thursday, Jan. 11. He will speak on "Market Solutions to the Health Care Crisis: Panaceas or Delusions?" in the second of UCSF's series of lectures on issues in health policy, hosted by UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop, MD. Rowe, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, is former chairman and CEO of Aetna, Inc. and of Mount Sinai NYU Health. The realities of health coverage are forcing states like California and Massachusetts to address the issue of how to pay for health care, Rowe said in an interview with UCSF Today, previewing some of the points of his lecture. The uninsured are likely to be members of a family in which some members have jobs; 14 million uninsured Americans live in households with incomes over $50,000. In response, government involvement is increasing every year, and the role of commercial insurers is shrinking. Beyond insurance coverage lies the question of how to control costs. Rowe said health care expenditures are rising - but not as fast as they used to rise. A key problem is that we often don't get what we pay for in health care. And a revolution is underway in the type of care we get, as Medicare rolls out its "Pay for Performance" initiatives aimed at rewarding treatments that meet standards for best practices, rather than reimbursing for the amount of treatment or the type of procedure performed. Rowe retired as chairman and chief executive officer of Aetna, Inc., a leading health care and related benefits organization, in late 2006. He formerly was president and CEO (1998-2000) of Mount Sinai NYU Health, one of the nation's largest academic health care organizations. Before joining Mount Sinai, Rowe was a professor of medicine and the founding director of the Division on Aging at Harvard Medical School, and was chief of gerontology at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital. He has written more than 200 scientific publications, mostly on the physiology of the aging process, as well as a leading textbook of geriatric medicine. He is chairman of the board of the University of Connecticut, has served as director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Aging and was a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). He is co-author, with Robert Kahn, PhD, of the book Successful Aging (Pantheon, 1998). He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture Series, established in 2006, brings a major figure in health policy to the UCSF campus several times a year to raise awareness in the community of the important health policy issues of the day. Rowe will speak at 513 Parnassus Ave., Health Sciences West (HSW) 300, from noon to 1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. In the event of audience overflow, a live video transmission of the lecture will play in HSW 302.

Related Links:

Former Aetna CEO Rowe to Deliver Second UCSF Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture
UCSF News Release, January 3, 2007

Former Aetna CEO Jack Rowe, MD, to Deliver Second UCSF Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture on Jan. 11
UCSF Today, December 22, 2006

New England Journal Editor-in-Chief Drazen to Launch Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture Series on April 19
UCSF Today, April 4, 2006