For Immediate Release March 15, 2010
Contact: Alexandra MacLean, (802) 828-3806
Dr. Hsiao, Health Policy Expert, to Testify Before Senate and House Health Care Committees on Thursday, March 18 Regarding Vermont’s Health Care System
Montpelier, Vt – At the invitation of Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, William Hsiao, the Harvard economist who specializes in health policy, will address a joint hearing of the legislature’s health care committees Thursday, March 18th, at 2 p.m. in room 11 at the Statehouse.
Dr. Hsiao’s visit is highly anticipated because this will be the first time Vermont legislators have heard from a health policy expert with real-world experience in creating a health care system.
“Vermonters can not afford our current health care system, with its never ending rising costs and obstacles to coverage. It is time for Vermont to make a commitment to move towards a system where all Vermonters have access to high quality, affordable health care,” said Senate President Peter Shumlin. “Dr. Hsiao has the skills to redesign our health care system and I am hopeful that legislation will be passed this year that will begin that process.”
Hsiao has guided successful reforms in a number of countries, including Taiwan, Sweden, Cyprus, China, Vietnam, Poland, Hong Kong, Uganda and South Africa.
Taiwan is a striking example of his use of his reform model. In 1995,the Hsiao-designed universal health care system was implemented within one year, driving down the rate of uninsured from 45% to 5% and stabilizing health spending at 6% of GDP. Quality and outcomes have improved and life expectancy for the previously uninsured has improved dramatically.
Hsiao is the K.T. Li Professor of Economics at Harvard. He is the director of the Program in Health Care Financing at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is author of many books, including 2004′s “Getting Health Reform Right.” More information on Dr. Hsiao can be obtained at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/william-hsiao/
Hsiao will speak to the Senate Health & Welfare Committee and the House Health Care Committee and answer their questions. The public is invited and encouraged to attend.
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I hope that Shumlin or Racine, or both, can get this guy to reform our health care fiasco. I can just see our governor’s reactions, though. That should be funny.
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I get very apprehensive every time I hear that “an expert” is coming in to consult and “help out”, particularly if they’re from Harvard. My life’s experience has taught me that God help us all when they do. Somehow or another, they always manage to screw up the works.
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“I get very apprehensive every time I hear that “an expert” is coming.”
Normally, I do as well. This, however, is different. This guy has designed health care systems all over the world. He did, for instance, take Taiwan from a system much like ours and move it to a point where it covers every citizen at vastly lower costs while still preserving its private nature. His first point is that a nation or state seeking such change must first have the moral will to do it. We, in Vermont(so far) and in the nation, do not have this moral will or courage to enhance the possibility of medical insurance for all of our citizens.