March 31, 2009

As the Obama administration calls for massive reforms to health care in the United States, Georgetown professor Jean Mitchell discuss the complexities of undertaking this challenge and related issues including cost of and access to insurance for individuals, families or businesses; an aging U.S. population; existing state or federal insurance programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP; privacy and electronic medical records; as well as political hurdles to passing such legislation and ethics.

Jean Mitchell is an economist and Professor in the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Her areas of expertise are health economics, health services research and applied econometrics. She has published more than 75 peer reviewed articles in leading economics, health services research and medical journals. Her published research includes the following topics: the effects of physician self-referral arrangements on utilization and costs of health services, effects of managed care insurance on access to care for specific medical procedures; effects of managed care on physicians’ practice styles, hours of work, earnings and satisfaction with medicine as a career; physicians’ responses to Medicare fee reductions; effects of physical and mental health on labor supply and earnings; effects of a Medicaid waiver for persons with AIDS on monthly expenditures, use of services and survival; access to medical and dental care along with use of medical and dental services for children with special health care needs enrolled in managed care versus fee-for-service; effects of physician ownership of either specialty hospitals or ambulatory surgery centers on frequency of use (referral rates) for specific inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures.