John Goddeeris, PhD, and Michael Herbert presented at the Bioethics for Breakfast event on May 10, 2018, offering perspective and insight on the topic, “Health Care Consolidations: Good News, Bad News, Fake News?” Leonard Fleck, PhD, moderated this session.
At the national level as well as in our state, the macro-level restructuring of health care delivery is impacting physician-patient clinical encounters, clinics, hospitals and health systems. As the engaged moderator for this session, Dr. Fleck guided those in attendance in examining downstream consequences of such restructuring and consolidations by posing questions to the two presenters: Dr. John Goddeeris, Professor of Economics, and Michael Herbert, Chief Executive Officer for the MSU HealthTeam.
Dr. Fleck asked the presenters to respond to the following questions: What are the basic statistics regarding health care consolidation? How does consolidation affect medical practice (and the core values of medicine)? Are patients better off as a result of consolidation? Does consolidation save the health care system money? Alternatively, does it give more pricing power to the hospital industry (against insurers who wish to demand discounts of various sorts)? Does this process have any significant effects for rural health care? Does this process increase or decrease disparities in the health care system, i.e., access to needed care for those less well off?
John Goddeeris
John Goddeeris, PhD, is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics in the College of Social Science at Michigan State University. Dr. Goddeeris’ expertise includes economic issues in health care, including health insurance and government programs. His research has been published widely in journals in economics, medicine, public health, and health policy. Dr. Goddeeris is a nonresident fellow in the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
Michael Herbert
Michael Herbert, Chief Executive Officer for the MSU HealthTeam, is a consultant dedicated to assisting Academic Medical Centers in organizational design and operations, including hospital and faculty group practice operations, as well as Medical School operations, leadership development, strategic plan design and implementation and government policy development. He has served in a variety of high-level medical school and health system leadership positions in Michigan as well as in many other states, and was the Associate Deputy Regional Director in the Department of Veterans Affairs.
MSU Bioethics 