ROUNDTABLES-AT-A-GLANCE
Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM
National Press Club
Each concurrent roundtable session was developed by Academy members and focused discussion on key issues across social insurance.
- UI Benefits, Financing, and Reemployment Services after the Great Recession
- Integrated Care: Breaking Down the Workers’ Compensation and General Health Care Silos
- The Link Between Retirement Security and Long-Term Care
- Supporting Work: Strategies to Boost Employment for People with Disabilities
- Health Insurance Exchanges – What Have We Learned?
1. Unemployment Insurance (UI) Benefits, Financing, and Reemployment Services after the Great Recession
UI recipients received up to 99 weeks of benefits during and after the Great Recession, but many UI recipients still exhausted their UI benefits; meanwhile, additional funding for reemployment services disappeared, and most state accounts in the Unemployment Trust Fund went broke. This roundtable discusses what happened to UI benefits and benefit financing, the availability of reemployment services, and how many UI exhaustees went on to collect SNAP benefits.
- Yvette Chocolaad, Employment and Training Director, National Association of State Workforce Agencies
- Randall Eberts, President, Upjohn Institute
- Wayne Vroman, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute
- Christopher O’Leary, Senior Economist, Upjohn Institute
- George Wentworth, Senior Staff Attorney, National Employment Law Project
- Moderator: Stephen Wandner, Visiting Fellow, Urban Institute and Visiting Scholar, Upjohn Institute
Underwritten by DirectEmployers Association
2. Integrated Care: Breaking Down the Workers’ Compensation and General Health Care Silos
Healthcare delivery in the U.S. is currently expensive and fragmented. Public funds support healthcare for the disabled poor, elderly, and uninsured, and employers fund most of the healthcare for the working age population. This disjointed approach contributes to system inefficiencies. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) provide renewed opportunities to integrate the various healthcare delivery systems. Integrated care is an idea that has been vetted in the past and is ripe for current implementation. This roundtable discusses this issue with various stakeholders with an interest in healthcare delivery, including representatives from social insurance, group health insurance, and workers’ compensation. Speakers will address prior experiences with integrated (24-hour) care, barriers to its implementation under current federal and state law, Medicare offsets and how they could be streamlined, and practical strategies for moving forward to provide better healthcare for all.
- Fred Fung, M.D., Medical Director, Occupational Medicine, Sharp HealthCare
- Frank Neuhauser, University of California, Berkeley Survey Research Center
- Bernyce Peplowski, Chief Innovation Officer, U.S. HealthWorks
- Paul Heaton, Director, RAND Institute for Civil Justice; Senior Economist
- Moderator: Rupali Das, M.D., Executive Medical Director, California Division of Workers’ Compensation
Co-Sponsored by Safeway and U.S. HealthWorks
3. The Link Between Retirement Security and Long-Term Care
Within the policy community, there has been a significant focus on long-term care issues with a good understanding of problems, but limited solutions so far. In addition, there is a lot of concern about retirement security, but the direct connection between long-term care and retirement security is often missed. During the last several years, the actuarial profession, through both the Society of Actuaries and the American Academy of Actuaries, has focused on major issues related to improving long-term care financing and security, and on issues related to the link between retirement security and long-term care. This roundtable will explore these issues through two panel discussions that include actuarial and other expert perspectives.
Part 1 – Setting the Stage:
- Anna Rappaport, Anna Rappaport Consulting
- Richard Johnson, Senior Fellow and Director, Program on Retirement Policy, Urban Institute
- Sandra Timmerman, Corporate Gerontologist/Aging & Business Strategies
- Moderator: Andrew Peterson, Staff Fellow – Retirement Systems, Society of Actuaries
Part 2 – Moving Toward a Better Future:
- Don Fuerst, Senior Pension Fellow, American Academy of Actuaries
- John Cutler, Senior Policy Analyst, Office of Personnel Management
- Eric Stallard, Associate Director, Center for Population Health and Aging, Duke Population Research Institute
Co-Sponsored by the Society of Actuaries and the American Academy of Actuaries
4. Supporting Work: Strategies to Boost Employment for People with Disabilities
With action needed by 2016 to prevent depletion of the Social Security Disability Insurance trust fund’s reserves, supporting work by people with disabilities has become a hot topic. This roundtable will explore policy solutions for helping individuals with disabilities enter and remain attached to the work force. Topics of discussion will include: early intervention strategies for helping workers with disabilities remain in the workforce; the role of vocational rehabilitation, as well as long-term supports and services in making it possible for some people with disabilities to work; proposals to harness the tax code to better support workers with disabilities; and strategies for supporting youth with disabilities in their transition to adulthood and the world of work; and more.
- Paul Van de Water, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
- Shawn Fremstad, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
- Rebecca Vallas, Associate Director, Poverty to Prosperity Program, Center for American Progress
- Elizabeth Jennings, Deputy Director, National Disability Institute
- Michael Gamel-McCormick, Associate Executive Director for Research and Policy, Association of University Centers on Disabilities
- Joe Entwisle, Senior Health Policy Analyst, Health & Disability Advocates
- Moderator: Harold Pollack, Helen Ross Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago
Made possible with support from the Ford Foundation.
5. Health Insurance Exchanges – What Have We Learned?
Health Insurance Exchanges (HIEs) meld the social insurance goal of universal coverage and benefits with patient choice, competition among private health care plans, and incentives aimed at controlling cost and improving quality. But do exchanges deliver? Do they actually offer America’s poor, unemployed, employees and employers good choices, hold down cost, and enhance quality? Or are they just a fad, or even a flop? The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires virtually all individuals to have access to a public HIE, and entitles low and moderate income Americans assistance in purchasing health insurance through HEIs, but the nature of exchanges has varied significantly from state to state. Meanwhile, mechanisms that resemble exchanges are expanding under Medicaid and continue as part of state employee health plans. At the same time, non-governmental health insurance exchanges—aimed at larger employers—have suddenly emerged. What have we learned as a nation about the exchange experience? As experts on health coverage, what can we predict about the future of exchanges? Bottom line: Will more people have access to affordable and effective health care?
- Alain Enthoven, Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management, Emeritus, Stanford University Graduate School of Business
- David Riemer, Senior Fellow, Community Advocates Public Policy Institute
- Deborah Chollet, Senior Fellow, Mathematica Policy Research
- Joel Ario, Managing Director, Manatt Health Consulting
- Stuart Butler, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution
- Len Nichols, Director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics (CHPRE), Professor of Health Policy, George Mason University
- Moderator: Timothy Jost, Robert L. Willett Family Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University
Co-Sponsored by the Wisconsin Health Partnership and the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute