Sepember 2007

Bradley Herring, Ph.D., assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University , was quoted in The Ithaca Journal article, "Heart Attack Lands Couple in Debt." The August 18, 2007 article describes the financial hardship that low-income, uninsured individuals who do not qualify for Medicaid often confront after experiencing a health incident. As a result, some believe that the United States should adopt a universal health care system similar to that of other countries. Dr. Herring notes that changing the health care system is complicated and that "there are three dimensions: cost, universal access and access to timely treatments.people just differ on how they fundamentally feel on those different aspects. So two people could be fully informed about the system and have a different set of opinions."

Jack Hoadley, Ph.D., research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, was quoted in the August 22, 2007 Kaisernetwork.org Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, "Minnesota Law Requires Medicaid Prescription Drug Formulary Panel Members to Disclose Ties to Pharmaceutical Companies." This article summarizes a Minnesota law, designed to eliminate conflict of interest, that would require pharmaceutical companies to release information regarding financial payments to panelists of the Minnesota Medicaid Drug Formulary Committee. Only three states require pharmaceutical companies to reveal to whom and for what they provide payments. Dr. Hoadley notes that, "in the absence of disclosure laws, there is certainly no way to know [whether conflict of interest exists in other states' leadership panels]. There are a lot of physicians in general who have at least some contract or grant funding out of pharmaceutical companies."

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