Nation's Leading Economists Urge Congress To Pass Health Insurance Reform

In a letter sent this morning to President Obama and Congress, 41 of the nation's leading economists -- including three winners of the Nobel Prize -- urge the swift passage of comprehensive health reform before Congress to slow 'unsustainable' health care spending:

...Without effective reform of the way we pay for health care, growth of health care spending will create unsustainable fiscal burdens, eat into cash compensation, perpetuate waste, and undermine the prospects for universal access to needed care.

The health care reforms passed by the House and Senate -- with recent modifications proposed by President Obama -- include serious measures that will slow the growth of health care spending...

Taken together, these measures are a serious, multi-faceted initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of American medical care, rein in the fastest growing portion of government and private budgets and provide a valuable platform for future cost-control efforts. If this nation is committed to cost containment and deficit reduction we must pass health care reform. If this legislation fails, the chances of reducing the growth of health care spending in the future will be greatly reduced.

Read the full letter»

Authors:

Henry J. Aaron

Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow, the Brookings Institution

David Cutler

Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Harvard University

Alice M. Rivlin

Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Director, Greater Washington Research, the Brookings Institution

Signatories:

Kenneth J. Arrow

Nobel Laureate, Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research Emeritus, Stanford University

Stuart Altman

Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health Policy, Heller School For Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University

Susan Athey

John Bates Clark Medal winner, Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Alan S. Blinder

Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics, Princeton University

Linda J. Blumberg

Senior Fellow, the Urban Institute Health Policy Center

Thomas Buchmueller

Waldo O. Hildebrand Professor of Risk Management and Insurance, Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

Leonard Burman

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Professor of Public Affairs at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University

Gary Burtless

Senior Fellow of Economic Studies and the John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair, the Brookings Institution

Anne Case

Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University

Peter Diamond

Institute Professor and Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Randall P. Ellis

Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Economics, Boston University, President-Elect, American Society of Health Economists

Alan Garber

Henry J. Kaiser Jr. Professor, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Economics, Health Research and Policy, Professor of Economics, Stanford University

Dana P. Goldman

Norman Topping Chair in Medicine and Public Policy, University of Southern California, Director, Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics

Jonathan Gruber

Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director, National Bureau of Economic Research's Program on Health Care

Richard Hirth

Professor of Health Management and Policy, Director, Health Services Organization and Policy Doctoral Program, School of Public Health, University of Michigan

John Holahan

Director, the Urban Institute Health Policy Center

Jill Horwitz

Louis and Myrtle Moskowitz Research Professor of Business and Law, University of Michigan Law School

William Hsiao

K.T. Li Professor of Economics, Department of Health Policy and Management, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard University

Theodore J. Joyce

Professor of Economics and Finance, Baruch College, City University of New York and Academic Director, Baruch/Mt Sinai MBA in Health Care Administration

Daniel Kahneman

Nobel Laureate, Senior Scholar, Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Lawrence Katz

Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Harvard University

Adriana Lleras-Muney

Associate Professor with Tenure, Department of Economics, University of California Los Angeles

Harold S. Luft

Caldwell B. Esselstyn Professor Emeritus of Health Economics and Health Policy, School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco; Director, Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute

Willard G. Manning

Professor, Harris School and the Department of Health Studies, University of Chicago

Eric S. Maskin

Nobel Laureate, A.O. Hirschman Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University

Len M. Nichols

Director, Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics; Professor of Health Policy, George Mason University

Harold Pollack

Helen Ross Professor, School of Social Service Administration, Faculty Chair, Center for Health Administration Studies, University of Chicago

Daniel Polsky

Professor of Medicine and Health Care Management, University of Pennsylvania; former Senior Economist at Council of Economic Advisers, 2007-08

Meredith B. Rosenthal

Associate Professor of Health Economics and Policy, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health

Stephen M. Shortell

Blue Cross of California Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management, Dean, School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley

Jonathan Skinner

John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor in Economics, Professor of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth College

Matthew D. Shapiro

Lawrence R. Klein Collegiate Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, University of Michigan

Katherine Swartz

Professor of Health Policy and Economics, Harvard School of Public Health, President, Immediate Past President, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management

Richard H. Thaler

Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

Kenneth Thorpe

Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Chair, Department of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University

Laura Tyson

S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management, Professor of Business Administration and Economics, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley; former Chairman of the National Economic Council, 1995-1996; former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1993-1995

Paul N. Van de Water

Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Richard Zeckhauser

Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University