Forum held on July 9, 2008
Featured speakers included the Health Minister of Germany, Ulla Schmidt and noted Health Economist Uwe Reinhardt.
Germany is in the process of implementing an individual mandate similar to Massachusetts. They recently enacted a series of reforms to control costs and increase quality using competition between health plans and the greater use of disease management. The German system has multiple sickness funds, private hospitals and physicians with a system of subsidies for families and individuals with low incomes. This was an opportunity to learn from the German experience.