Smaller roundtable discussions on a variety of topics led by faculty followed. This year's Alumni Award of Merit winners were also recognized at a lunch. I like to get updated. I really left with more knowledge about the current issues and where public health is going. Panelist George Annas, M.P.H.'72, Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, was less sanguine.
Consumers can make decisions in their own right.
Mark Rapoport, M.P.H.'73, medical director for Medicaid Programs for Oxford Health Plans in Norwalk, Connecticut, countered that managed care has achieved some public health goals, chiefly in the area of prevention. Moreover, he argued that those savings get reflected in lower health insurance premiums that make more employers willing to cover their employees. She mentioned organizational challenges, citing as an example Georgia's 159 counties each having its own board of health, but also a kind of public health identity crisis. Nancy Valentine, M.P.H.'78, chief consultant for the Nursing Strategies Healthcare Group for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, offered the VA as having discovered some antidotes to what ails the larger health care delivery system. Valentine explained that the department has gained considerable experience in providing complete health care to some specific populations, such as the aged and the mentally ill.