Center for Studying Health System Change

HSC'S 4th Annual

Wall Street Comes To Washington:
Analysts’ Perspectives on Health System Change

Wednesday, June 9, 1999
9:00 a.m. - 12 Noon (8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast)
Washington, D.C.
Grand Hyatt Hotel at Metro Center, Constitution B

Roundtable Participants:

• Christine Arnold, Vice President, Goldman Sachs
• Karen Boezi, Venture Partner, Coral Ventures
• Norm Fidel, Senior Vice President, Alliance Capital Management, LP
• Geoffrey E. Harris, Global Head of Corporate Finance, Health Care Division, Warburg Dillon & Read
• Patricia Widner, Senior Vice President, Warburg, Pincus Counsellors, Inc.

Moderators:

• Paul Ginsburg, President, Center for Studying Health System Change
• Joy Grossman, Health Researcher, Center for Studying Health System Change

The Conference:

At this fourth annual roundtable hosted by HSC, Wall Street analysts offer their perspectives on current trends in health care, including how long they expect premiums to rise and employer response to such increases, what benefits and risks accrue from the continued consolidation of plans and hospitals, what has been the impact of recent high profile physician practice management company failures (PPMC) and how has the market and regulators responded and finally, what has been and will be the impact of the Balanced Budget Act on providers, plans and Medicare beneficiaries.

The roundtable participants are drawn from different backgrounds - including analysts who advise health care investors and portfolio managers who themselves invest in health care companies - and have complementary expertise. Each of the participants will offer varying perspectives about the current interaction between business, medicine and policy and speculate on what the future might hold for the nation's health care system. There will be adequate time for questions from the audience.

Conference Topics:

What is driving the recent uptick in premiums and how is this related to underlying costs? To what extent have pharmaceutical cost increases been brought under control? Will patient protection legislation and other managed care regulations provoke a surge in costs, and consequently in premiums? In this section, the analysts will discuss what they think 1999 holds in terms of premium increases, and whether or not we can expect a return to double digit increases in the new millennium. How will purchasers respond to plan demands for larger premium increases and what will be the impact on employees?

What have been the benefits and lessons learned to date from recent plan consolidations? Will these mergers enable plans to gain leverage in particular markets and what might the impact be on providers, employers and consumers? Analysts will contrast the plan consolidation experience with that of hospitals. Is there any empirical evidence that in some markets hospitals are gaining ground vis-a-vis plans?

What has been the immediate fallout from the PPMC failures? How have physicians associated with PPMCs fared? How are the remaining PPMCs and others such as hospital-owned physician organizations revamping their strategies? How will physicians organize themselves and where will they go for new sources of capital to finance their growth? In this section, analysts will also discuss how regulators are responding to PPMC and plan bankruptcies and how these responses influence market dynamics.

How has and how will the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) impact provider payments and what are the implications for hospitals and other acute care providers? What has been the effect of this legislation on Medicare risk plans? Analysts will discuss how the BBA has affected plan entry and exits, changes in benefits and beneficiary premiums, as well as plan profits. The effect of all of these changes on consumers will also be considered.

What You Can Expect From This Conference:

Hear the views of analysts who track the fortunes of varying health care companies, and from investors who have direct influence over the strategic direction of these organizations.

Learn how Wall Street perceives recent legislation and regulation and what effect they think these actions have on market behavior and costs.

Ask questions about current trends and new developments to better understand how the health care system is evolving and what these changes mean for the industry, purchasers and consumers.

	Wall Street Comes to Washington: Analysts' Perspectives on the Changing Health Care System Issue Brief No. 21
	Wall Street Analysts Predict Several Years of Higher Health Plan Premiums Conference Executive Summary
	Fourth Annual Wall Street Comes to Washington: Analysts' Perspectives on Health System Change Conference Transcript

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