News Sources: California Health Revamp Fails

The demise of California's proposed health-care restructuring underscores a difficulty states face in achieving universal insurance coverage: their inability to slow the upward trajectory of health-care costs, analysts said. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Merton Finkler - Professor of Economics, Lawrence University - A specialist in the economics of health care, Finkler has served as consultant to California's Kaiser Permanente Medical Group since 1987. He also runs Innovative Health Associates, a private consulting firm specializing in long-term care and managed care evaluation and strategy. He is a former Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in health care finance.

Edward Sayre - Assistant Professor of Economics, Agnes Scott College - Sayre has written extensively on the effect of HMOs on the quality of health, care.

Ann Owen - Associate Professor of Economics, Hamilton College - Owen served as an economist for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors before joining Hamilton College. Owen focuses her research on the effects of international trade on health and savings behavior. Owen is a frequent media commentator on issues related to Federal Reserve decisions, Social Security, and various economic indices for outlets including MarketWatch, Associated Press, The New York Times, UPI, Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Baltimore Sun. She also serves as director of the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center at Hamilton College and is a board member for the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession.

Trinity Health Care Alums Make "Powerful" List

Trinity University has received nationally recognition for its Health Care Administration program. The program's alumni are also sharing the spotlight, as three of them have been included in a list of the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare magazine.

News Sources: Health Insurance Cost Hikes

The increasing cost of health insurance is putting coverage out of reach for many small to midsize companies and their workers, even though the rise in premiums this year was the lowest increase in eight years. Since 2001, the cost of premiums has gone up 78 percent, far outpacing a 19 percent increase in wages and 17 percent jump in inflation, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research group that annually tracks the cost of health insurance. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including (click on names for contact information):

Merton Finkler - Professor of Economics, Lawrence University - Finkler is a specialist in the economics of health care. He has served as consultant to California's Kaiser Permanente Medical Group since 1987. He also runs Innovative Health Associates, a private consulting firm specializing in long-term care and managed care evaluation and strategy. He is a former Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in health care finance.

Alan H. Goodman - Professor of Biological Anthropology, Hampshire College - Goodman teaches and writes on the health and nutritional consequences of political-economic processes such as poverty, inequality and racism. He conducts several long-term studies into undernutrition in ancient cultures and correlating social factors. He is the author of Races and Wrongs: Why Good Science is Bad Science.

Martin A. Strosberg - Professor of Management, Union College - Strosberg, a leader in the evaluation of intensive care units, co-edited Rationing America's Medical Care: The Oregon Plan and Beyond and Rationing of Medical Care for the Critically Ill. He has researched the impact of New York State's 1987 Do-Not-Resuscitate Law.

News Sources: Hillary's Health Experience

Hillary Clinton touts her experience is her long suit, her ace-in-the-hole against Barack Obama. However, says DePauw's Ken Bode, her experience includes a time when she had the power and the opportunity to push for universal healthcare. He says her moral certainty and stubborn opposition to compromise lost the battle and drove the issue off the national agenda for 14 years.