The Healthcare Reform America Needs: Private Sector or Publicly Funded?

Come to the Adam Smith Society debate on healthcare where both sides will be argued.

Lanhee Chen will argue on the privatization side and Professor Michael Cousineau will represent the public/single-payer side. Professor Shon Hiatt to moderate.

Lanhee Chen, Ph.D.

A veteran of several high-profile political campaigns, Chen has worked in politics, government, the private sector, and academia. He currently serves as the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University, and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School.

Chen was the policy director for the 2012 Mitt Romney presidential campaign and Romney's chief policy adviser. He has been described as the "orchestra leader" behind the Romney 2012 campaign. Romney confidante Beth Myers described Chen as the person Romney relied on "entirely" for policy direction. Chen was also a senior adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Marco Rubio.

Chen was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a seat on the bipartisan and independent Social Security Advisory Board, which advises the President, Congress, and the Social Security Administrator on Social Security policies. He was recommended for the post by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. His term expired in September 2018.

He also currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of El Camino Hospital, the hospital of Silicon Valley.
 

Professor Michael Cousineau, DPH

Michael R. Cousineau is currently Clinical Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Family Medicine at USC. He has a joint appointment in the Sol Price School of Public Policy. He teaches in both the Masters in Public Health program and in the Professionalism and the Practice of Medicine.

His work focuses on health policy and health services and evaluation research, access to care for the low income uninsured, governance and operation of safety-net providers including public hospitals, community-based clinics and health centers; and health needs of vulnerable populations including homeless people. His work includes studying the impact of initiatives designed to expand health insurance to adults and children, the dynamics of insurance coverage decisions by small businesses, alternative governance of safety net hospitals, and the health and mental health needs of the homeless. He is an expert on the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act, having given over 30 talks on the new law to community and professional groups. He has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the U.S. Health Services and Services Administration, The California Endowment, the Office of Minority Health, Blue Shield Foundation, the California Healthcare Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has published in Health Affairs, Medical Care, Public Health Reports, the American Journal of Public Health, Academic Medicine, and Health Services Research.