New health care bill: U-M experts can discuss

June 22, 2017
Written By:
Laurel Thomas
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John Ayanian, director of the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, the Alice Hamilton Professor of Internal Medicine and professor of public health and public policy, is an expert on how access to health insurance affects individuals’ access to health care, the quality of care they receive and their health outcomes.

He leads IHPI’s federally approved objective evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan, the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The evaluation recently found that Michigan’s expansion of Medicaid health insurance coverage has boosted the state’s economy and budget, and will continue to do even as the state assumes more of the cost of caring for the 672,576 Michiganders who have signed up for the program.

Contact: Via Kara Gavin, 734-764-2220, kegavin@umich.edu


Nicholas Bagley, professor at the Law School, is an authority on health care law, with a focus on Medicare and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He is also a frequent contributor to “The Incidental Economist,” a prominent health policy blog.

Contact: nbagley@umich.edu


Sue Anne Bell is a clinical associate professor at the U-M School of Nursing. Her research focuses on health outcomes in relationship to emergencies and acute care, with an eye towards impacting policy change, particularly in terms of health disparities.

Contact: sabell@med.umich.edu or on Twitter: @sueannebell


Vanessa Dalton is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical School who examines the impact of health care reform on reproductive health services utilization. She is using data from private insurance companies to analyze patterns of contraceptive use, preventive screening and women’s health visits before and after the Affordable Care Act mandate for women’s health services took effect.

Contact: Via Beata Mostafavi, 734-764-2220, bmostafa@umich.edu


Chad Ellimoottil is an assistant professor of urology at the Medical School who studies the impact of several programs rolled out by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which was created under the Affordable Care Act. His research has evaluated the bundled payment programs that pay hospitals in a new way based on quality and cost, as well as the impact of the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program.

Contact: Via Kara Gavin, 734-764-2220, kegavin@umich.edu


Mark Fendrick is a professor of internal medicine at the Medical School and professor of health management and policy at the School of Public Health. He also heads the Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, a bipartisan health reform initiative that has been incorporated into private and public health insurance plans.

Contact: Via Kara Gavin, 734-764-2220, kegavin@umich.edu


Scott Greer, associate professor of health management and policy at the School of Public Health, researches the politics of health policies, with a special emphasis on the politics and policies of the European Union and the impact of federalism on health care. His U.S.-focused research has addressed policy implications of Ebola and Zika, and a scorecard that showed how public health would be impacted under the new administration.

“Between huge Medicaid cuts and the gutting of Obamacare’s subsidies and regulations, this bill proposes the biggest cuts in American social policy ever,” he said. “That’s why Republicans are so reluctant to expose it to public view and criticism, and that’s why it is such high stakes for politicians and almost every person in the U.S.”

Contact: 734-615-3711, slgreer@umich.edu


Richard Hirth, professor and chair of health management and policy at the School of Public Health and professor of internal medicine at the Medical School, can discuss the Affordable Care Act and efforts to repeal and replace it. His research lies in the areas of economics of health insurance, health care costs and payment system design.

Contact: rhirth@umich.edu


Peter Jacobson is a professor of health law and policy and director for the Center for Law, Ethics, and Health at the School of Public Health. He can address the legal aspects of dismantling the Affordable Care Act.

“This legislation will deprive millions of Americans health care coverage they need, will restore pre-existing condition limitations, and allow sham health insurance policies to substitute for real health care—all to provide wealthy Americans with even more tax breaks,” he said. “The proposed legislation is a moral disgrace that deserves an ignominious demise.”

Contact: 734-936-0928, pdj@umich.edu


Jeffrey Kullgren is an assistant professor of internal medicine at the Medical School. He studies how people make decisions about the health care they use and how those decisions are affected by the out-of-pocket costs they face through high-deductible health plans, and the “transparency” tools made available by public and private insurers and nonprofits. He is working with a major private insurer to develop a price-transparency tool that can be used during a patient visit. He is also studying the impact of cost-conscious aspects of Michigan’s Medicaid expansion on participants’ health-related behavior.

Contact: Via Kara Gavin, 734-764-2220, kegavin@umich.edu


Helen Levy is a research professor at the Institute for Social Research, School of Public Health and Ford School of Public Policy. She is a health economist who studies the causes and consequences of uninsurance, and evaluates the impact of public health insurance programs. She also is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and served as a senior economist to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Contact: hlevy@umich.edu


Michelle Moniz is an assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Medical School whose research focuses on access, utilization and costs of reproductive health services, and the dissemination of evidence-based services to prevent unintended pregnancy. She is studying public attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage mandate, and Medicaid reimbursement for long-acting contraception options delivered immediately after a woman has given birth.

Contact: Via Beata Mostafavi, 734-764-2220, bmostafa@umich.edu


Sara Pasquali, the Janette Ferrantino Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical School, specializes in the care of children born with heart conditions, as well as a leading researcher on quality of care for such children nationwide. In the wake of TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue on his newborn son’s life-threatening heart defect, she can speak about the many aspects of health policy that affect the lives of such children, and about the need for research to ensure that they receive high-quality lifelong care.

Contact: Via Kara Gavin, 734-764-2220, kegavin@umich.edu


Renuka Tipirneni, clinical lecturer in internal medicine at the Medical School, studies health reform, primary care practice redesign and Medicaid policy, including the impact of Medicaid expansion on access to primary care in Michigan. She is also interested in the potential impact of health care reform on health disparities and generally in issues related to health care access, immigrant health and vulnerable populations.

Contact: Via Kara Gavin, 734-764-2220, kegavin@umich.edu


Marianne Udow-Phillips is the executive director of the Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation, a nonpartisan health policy center based at U-M, and a lecturer at the School of Public Health. Previously, Udow-Phillips spent more than 20 years in leadership positions at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and served as director of the Michigan Department of Human Services. Her expertise includes access to health care, as well as health insurance, and payment and financing.

Contact: Via Heather Guenther, 734-998-8514, hguenthe@umich.edu