Speakers announced for October 19 event in NYC – Hospital Prices: Are we at the tipping point?
NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 27, 2023 – To continue the growing momentum for accountability and rationality in hospital pricing, 32BJ Labor Industry Cooperation Fund and 32BJ Health Fund are hosting, “Hospital Prices: Are we at the tipping point?“ Now in its second year, the October 19 event brings together employers, labor leaders, legislators, health policy experts, and other industry stakeholders working to enact purchasing and policy strategies and engage with hospitals to lower healthcare costs for purchasers, employees and their families.
“While we’re encouraged that the federal government and New York City have pushed greater transparency to empower a fairer hospital pricing system for the employers, unions and individuals who bear the brunt of rising healthcare costs, we are far from achieving our goals of affordability and quality,” said Manny Pastreich, President of SEIU 32BJ and Trustee for 32BJ Labor Industry Cooperation Fund, who will kick off the conference discussion. “Achieving this requires the largest private and public purchasers to collectively engage to drive down hospital prices via policy work and direct interaction with hospitals. Until we drive down cost of the most expensive hospitals, healthcare will remain unaffordable for poor and working class Americans.”
Keynote speaker Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD, Editor-in-Chief for KFF Health News and author of An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back, will provide insight as to the impact hospital prices play as the leading cause of rising healthcare costs and offer strategies on how to fix our broken system.
Additional speakers include:
· Elisabeth R. Benjamin, MSPH, JD, Vice President of Health Initiatives, Community Service
Society of New York
· Claire Brockbank, Director, Policy and Strategy, 32BJ Health Fund
· Liz Krueger, New York State Senator and Chair of the Senate Finance Committee
· Lee Lewis, Chief Strategy Officer and GM Medical Solutions, Health Transformation
Alliance
· Cora Opsahl, Director, 32BJ Health Fund
· Stacey Richter, Host, Relentless Health Value
· Ramon Rodriguez, President and CEO, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center
· Misha Sharp, Assistant Director of Policy, 32BJ Health Fund
· Lauren Vela, Strategic Advisor and Consultant advocating for employers’ role in better
healthcare
“Over the last 20 years the cost of health benefits has risen at a rate more than four times that of increase of wages,” said Howard Rothschild, President of the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations. “Hospital prices are a significant driver of these costs and if not brought under control, our ability to provide coverage without sacrificing wage growth is at risk for every employer in New York.”
The conference will be held on
Thursday, October 19
from 8:00 am-3:00 pm ET at Building Services 32BJ Benefit Funds in New York.
Learn more and register at City & State.
About 32BJ
Labor Industry Cooperation Trust Fund
The 32BJ Labor Industry Cooperation Trust Fund was created by the Service Employees International Union, Local 32BJ, and the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, Inc., for the sole and exclusive purpose of containing healthcare costs, including healthcare pricing, for the benefit of 32BJ union members and employers in the New York City and surrounding areas.
About 32BJ Health Fund
The 32BJ Health Fund, a unique collaboration between labor and management, provides innovative quality and affordable health benefits to more than 210,000 working-class people — doormen and women, office cleaners, security guards and other property service workers in New York and 11 other states on the East Coast — on behalf of more than 5,000 employers. Learn more: 32BJHealthFundInsights
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