With the passage of health reform, many are wondering what that reform will ultimately look like. Who better to discuss the challenges and opportunities of health care reform than officials from our neighbor to the north, Massachusetts, which has a head start in the health reform effort with their 2006 law that mandated insurance coverage for all residents.
So I’m excited to be hosting Sarah Iselin, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts, on Thursday as she talks about the second phase of that state’s health reform effort: cost containment. Sarah was most recently the commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, where she managed critical phases of the state’s health care reform law.
Sarah will speak at 5:30 p.m. on April 8 at the Rhode Island Foundation as part of my Making It Work series that brings national health reform leaders to Rhode Island to help us chart a course for an affordable, quality health care system in our state.
Cost containment effort is critical if the state’s move to universal coverage is to be sustainable, and Sarah will discuss in detail what is working— and what isn’t—in Massachusetts’ efforts to contain health care costs.
I hope you’ll join us in this conversation as Rhode Island begins to consider how to implement health reform. To register for the event, call (401) 427-4029, and click here for directions to the RI Foundation.