The University of Illinois College of Law presents:
Ann F. Baum Memorial Elder Law Lecture
Monday, April 4, 2022
12-1 p.m. Central
Virtual
"Winners and Losers in 60 Years of Debate over the Expansion of Medicare"
Allison K. Hoffman
Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Senior Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
At various moments in Medicare’s early history, it was assumed or imagined that Medicare would expand significantly. At its inception, some of its creators saw Medicare as the platform on which national health insurance would eventually grow. Others built guardrails to prevent an expansive future. In the decades that followed, most attempts at meaningful expansion failed. In the 1990s, for example, the Catastrophic Care Act attempted to eliminate gaps in the program’s cost-sharing structure, only to be repealed shortly after its passage. Efforts to include long-term care benefits are proposed and defeated on a regular basis. Even efforts to add benefits for dental, hearing and vision care during the Biden Administration have fallen short.
Each failed effort at expansion has its own discreet story. Viewed together, however, these efforts tell a more uniform story. When these failed efforts are examined side-by-side with one major expansion effort that did succeed, the creation of prescription drug benefits under Medicare Part D, it becomes clear that Medicare’s evolution has been shaped by increased privatization of the administrative state and by an American ambivalence with social insurance.
Allison K. Hoffman, an expert on health care law and policy, examines some of the most important legal and social issues of our time, including health insurance regulation, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and retiree healthcare expenses, and long-term care.
Her research aims to bring greater descriptive and analytical clarity to the purposes of health care and health insurance regulation and policy design. Her writing appears in top law reviews and peer reviewed medical and health policy journals. Hoffman co-edited the Oxford Handbook of U.S. Health Law with I. Glenn Cohen and William M. Sage, which offers the most comprehensive review of U.S. health law in the post-ACA era.
She is a frequent media commentator on issues of health law and policy. Her opinion writing has appeared in The Hill, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Washington Post, as well as in various blogs. She was awarded the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2017-18.
Professor Hoffman’s current projects evaluate the adoption of a public health insurance option for employer health plans, consider the future of long-term care and end of life care policies and regulation especially in light of the impact of COVID-19, and critique how economic theory has overly shaped the development of health law and policy. She is also co-authoring a 3rd Edition of The Politics of Medicare with Theodore R. Marmor.
Before joining the faculty at Penn Law, Professor Hoffman was on the faculty at the UCLA School of Law and was a Petrie-Flom fellow at Harvard Law School. She also practiced health care law at Ropes and Gray and was a strategy consultant at The Bridgespan Group and the Boston Consulting Group.
Ann F. Baum Memorial Elder Law Lecture
In remembrance of the life of Mrs. Ann F. Baum, a gift through her estate has endowed the Ann F. Baum Memorial Elder Law Lecture. This lecture series seeks to promote the relevant and timely discussion of broad range of issues relating to the intersection of public policy, the law, and the elderly.
Mrs. Baum was born November 11, 1922, into a poor Irish Catholic family. A life-long resident of the Chicago area, Mrs. Baum grew up with seven siblings. She and her husband, the late Alvin H. Baum, operated an investment firm in Chicago. Mr. Baum passed away in 1982, and Mrs. Baum passed away in 2005.
Mrs. Baum and her late husband were compassionate individuals who supported a broad array of charities as well as providing direct support to needy individuals. Targets of their giving included the disadvantaged, the young, the elderly, religious organizations, educational organizations, and civic organizations. Their legacy of giving and sharing is continued through the Alvin H. Baum Family Fund of which Alvin and Ann were both benefactors.
The Ann F. Baum Memorial Elder Law Lecture constitutes a fitting memorial to a woman who was deeply concerned with the rights and issues pertaining to elderly people in our society.
Free and open to the public.
Join the lecture on Zoom at 12 p.m. Central:
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/81009639419?pwd=R2JpNklnNVF5TEJaTlZrTUd4OTRMdz09
Meeting ID: 810 0963 9419
Password: 895546
