Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Concerned Actuaries Group Launch Collaborative Public Dialogue on American Health Care

For Immediate Release

Today the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the Concerned Actuaries Group are announcing a new collaborative initiative dedicated to informing the public, policymakers and key stakeholders regarding the fiscal and managerial challenges confronting our health care system. This effort seeks to encourage a broader and more informed discussion about why the system is costly and not working to maximum capacity.

Through this initiative, American Health Care: Rethinking the Challenges, Opportunities and Possibilities, the two organizations will each publish and promote a series of papers, briefings, presentations and other materials to energize a much needed conversation about improving the sustainability and accessibility of our health care system and managing the rising costs that threaten our current system.

“The national health care system is incredibly complex, and all too often misunderstood,” said Mark Litow of the Concerned Actuaries Group. “Through the American Health Care initiative, we hope to cast new light on what’s working and what’s not and alert the policymakers and the public to challenges, opportunities and possibilities they might not have considered. We also hope to help create an environment that encourages honest discussions on how to move forward that are based on an understanding of the facts and a recognition of the demographic, economic, fiscal, and equity issues that must be addressed.”

“National health care costs are simply too high to ignore,” explained Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “Health care cost growth represents an ongoing challenge for families, businesses, and governments. At the federal level, health care spending represents our largest and fastest growing spending category – and tough choices must be made to slow that cost growth. The American Health Care project will help educate the public about those choices.”

Under the auspices of the American Health Care initiative, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Concerned Actuaries Group will release a series of products over the next year. Today, the Concerned Actuaries Group published a video briefing, "Big Numbers: Population Demographics, Cost of Care, and the Health Care Economy." The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget published “Health Spending and the Federal Budget," a short primer on federal health spending.

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For more information, contact:

Patrick Newton, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget at newton@crfb.org

Mark Litow, Concerned Actuaries Group at mlitow@wi.rr.com

About the Organizations:

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is a nonpartisan, non-profit organization committed to educating the public on issues with significant fiscal policy impact. Our bipartisan leadership comprises some of the nation's leading budget experts, including many past heads of the House and Senate Budget Committees, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office, and the Federal Reserve Board. As an independent source of objective policy analysis, we regularly engage policymakers of both parties and help them develop and analyze proposals to improve the country’s fiscal and economic condition.

The Concerned  Actuaries Group (CAG) is dedicated to ensuring that the nation's public finance and social insurance programs are designed and managed with the actuarial discipline and transparency such programs should require. Its leadership includes a number of nationally recognized prominent actuaries.

Both are nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organizations.