US presidents and policymakers have for decades struggled with the issue of ballooning health care costs and were unsuccessful, or unmotivated, in finding a path to lasting cost containment. Recently, though, there has been progress. The forthcoming issue of Health Affairs, "Tackling the Cost Conundrum," explores the slowing growth of health care expenditures of late and examines whether it is a temporary or lasting phenomenon; the issue also examines major cost drivers and presents proposals for putting Medicare on a more sustainable path.

Please join Health Affairs Founding Editor John Iglehart on Tuesday, May 7, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, for a Health Affairs briefing at which we unveil the May 2013 thematic issue, "Tackling the Cost Conundrum." The thematic issue and briefing are supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Register online at the link above. Follow live Tweets from the event @HA_Events, and join in the conversation with the hashtag #HA_Costs.

Panels will examine:

• Is The Slowdown In Health Spending Permanent?
• How Can We Make Medicare Sustainable?
• What Are The Major Cost Drivers (In And Out Of Medicare)?

• Joseph Antos, Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy, American Enterprise Institute
• Michael Chernew, Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School
• David Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Harvard University
• Karen Davis, Eugene and Mildred Lipitz Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, and Director, Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care, Johns Hopkins University
• John Holahan, Institute Fellow, Health Policy Center, Urban Institute
• John Iglehart, Founding Editor, Health Affairs
• Michael Painter, Senior Program Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Robert Reischauer, President Emeritus, Urban Institute
• Kenneth E. Thorpe, Professor and Chair, Department of Health Policy and Management, and Robert W. Woodruff Professor, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
• Chapin White, Senior Health Researcher, Center for Studying Health System Change

In the April issue of Health Affairs, Wilm Quentin of Berlin University of Technology and co-authors analyze hospital payment systems in five European countries (England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden) and compare them to those in the United States. Similar to the US Medicare program, these European hospital payment systems are based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) and prospective payment. However, European countries have substantially altered, and arguably improved upon, the original US formula that they adopted. The authors identify a variety of payment design options from Europe and suggest that these potential innovations could be used to reform DRG-based hospital payments in the United States.

Support for the April issue, "The 'Triple Aim' Goes Global," was provided by The Commonwealth Fund, Britain's Nuffield Trust, and the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. The issue was discussed at an April 11 briefing in Washington DC. Video of the briefing is available on the Health Affairs Web site at http://www.healthaffairs.org/events/2013_04_11_triple_aim_goes_global/.

Stan Dorn and John Holahan describe the benefits of Medicaid expansion and say that the Heritage Foundation has been misleadingly using their work to argue that states should not expand their Medicaid programs.
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/05/03/the-benefits-of-medicaid-expansion-a-reply-to-heritages-misleading-use-of-our-work/

John Lumpkin says that the latest results of Oregon's Medicaid expansion show that coverage is the first step, but it alone is not enough.
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/05/02/oregons-medicaid-experiment-coverage-is-the-first-step/

Ron Pollack, Anne Filipic, and Rachel Klein outline Enroll America's efforts to educate consumers about the Affordable Care Act and help them enroll in appropriate coverage.
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/05/03/securing-the-enrollment-of-uninsured-americans-in-health-coverage/

David Keller looks at the evolution of the "medical home" concept from its pediatric roots and offers suggestions to keep the focus on patients.
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/05/03/medical-homes-work-with-the-patient-at-the-center/

Tim Jost analyzes federal guidance implementing the Affordable Care Act on

• the role of agents and brokers in the exchanges, http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/05/02/implementing-health-reform-the-role-of-agents-and-brokers-in-the-exchanges/;
• defining "minimum value" for employer-sponsored coverage, http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/05/01/implementing-health-reform-defining-minimum-value-for-employer-coverage/;
• and several other topics. http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/04/30/implementing-health-reform-little-rulemaking-but-a-steady-stream-of-guidance/

Sundar Subramanian, Joyjit Saha Choudhury, and Hector Rincon lay out the seven choices they believe Medicare plans will need to make in order to survive.
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/05/01/seven-choices-medicare-plans-will-need-to-make-in-order-to-survive/.

Al Lewis and Vik Khanna explain the arithmetic that undermines claims of savings from workplace wellness screenings.
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2013/04/29/the-million-dollar-workplace-wellness-heart-attack-screen/

Health Affairs, published by Project HOPE, is the leading journal of health policy. The peer-reviewed journal appears each month in print, with additional Web First papers published weekly at www.healthaffairs.org. Health Affairs Blog content is available free to all readers. Under a Creative Commons license, users may link to or share Health Affairs Blog content with others as long as attribution is given, copyright is cited, and a link back to the blog is provided. Health Affairs Blog content may not be altered in any way or used commercially.

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