Form & Reform: The Economic Realities of the United States Healthcare System

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Eric Steiger, I\u27m one of the editors-in-chief from the Journal of Law and Health. And I\u27m happy to welcome all of you to the second speaker event in the 2009/2010 Journal of Law and Health Speaker Series. Thank you all for coming. Now, I know that the news last week was dominated by the story of Sandra Bullock\u27s breakup; however, some of you might have noticed that a small piece of minor legislation also got passed through Congress last week. And you also might have noticed that it wasn\u27t quite as full of bipartisan support as it otherwise might have been. And so, the real question: Could it have been? What would such legislation have looked like? And what\u27s the real difference between that and what we have now? And in order to help us answer that question, we have Professor Mark Vortuba from Case Western Reserve\u27s Weatherhead School of Management with us. Professor Vortuba has written on the allocation of medical resources, incentives for care, insurance markets, the effects of plant closings on communities, parental job loss and the link between divorced non-resident fathers\u27 proximity and children\u27s long-run outcomes. He has a P.h.D from Princeton University, and we\u27re proud to have him here today. Everybody please give a warm welcome to Professor Mark Vortuba