If you're in North Alabama, here's a great opportunity to get the facts without the spin:
Sponsored by: Health Care for Everyone - Alabama, UAHuntsville Nursing College and UAHuntsville Communication Arts Department
Health Care Reform: Can We Have Universal Coverage, Quality Care AND Controlled Costs?
FREE and Open to the Public
Panel discussion with national and statewide health experts. Question and answer session will follow the panel discussion. More info: Lahaynes@knology.net or 256-489-3884
Tuesday, August 25 @ 7:00 pm Trinity United Methodist Church, Wesley Hall 607 Airport Road SW, Huntsville, AL (directions below)
Healthcare reform is not a political game. If we don’t get it right, Americans’ health costs will double in 10 years – while 22,000 of us continue to die each year due to the lack of insurance. We all lose.
Toss aside the political tricks and see what’s really going on. Although we're closer than we've been in decades to enacting real healthcare reform, the current Congressional bills don’t yet tackle the big question of how to control spiraling costs. This event does.
There’s no question, something has to give. But how will it affect you? Learn what health experts say about the hard decisions to come and the promising, innovative solutions on the table. _____________________________________
Two panelists have either recently testified before, or participated in, meetings with Congressional committees on healthcare reform as representatives of their national organizations.
1) Fred Ralston, MD, FACP. President-elect, American College of Physicians. (Second largest physician group in the U.S.)
2) Wally Retan, MD, FACP. State Coordinator, Health Care for Everyone – Alabama. (Coalition of organizations, businesses and individuals supporting a Medicare-for-All type healthcare system)
3) Fay Raines, PhD, RN. President of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and Dean of UA Huntsville College of Nursing. (Member of 2009 White House delegation on healthcare reform)
Moderated by: Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA. George W. Merck Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 2009-2010.
Panelists will address how to solve cost problems including unaffordable insurance; over treatments; high drug costs; proliferation of unproven drugs and devices; wasteful paperwork; physician and nurse shortages; over use of emergency rooms; little focus on prevention; costly readmissions; poor management of chronic diseases; fee-for-service physician payment structure, among others.
_____________________________________ BIOGRAPHIES -- Panelists and Moderator
1) J. Fred Ralston, Jr., MD, FACP, is 2009-2010 President-elect of the American College of Physicians (ACP), the national organization of internists. The ACP is the second largest physician group in the U.S.
Dr. Ralston participated on July 2, 2009 in a White House primary care roundtable with Nancy-Ann DeParle, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform. He also represented the American College of Physicians at a meeting with key staffers of the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees in June to discuss pending legislation.
Dr. Ralston has been in the practice of general internal medicine in Fayetteville, Tennessee since 1983. He has served in many leadership capacities for the Tennessee Medical Association, including a term as board chairman. He is co-author of “Achieving a High-Performance Health Care System with Universal Access: What the United States Can Learn from Other Countries,” Ann Intern Med. 2008; 148:55-75, written with Jack A. Ginsburg, Robert B. Doherty, and Naomi Senkeeto, developed for the ACP Health and Public Policy Committee.
A graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., Dr. Ralston received his B.A. in political science from Yale University. He earned his medical degree in 1980 from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine and completed internal medicine residency training at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. He is board-certified in internal medicine. For more information about Dr. Ralston http://www.acponline.org/about_acp/leadership/executives_staff/#pres_elect
2) J. Walden (Wally) Retan, MD, FACP, is state coordinator of Health Care For Everyone - Alabama, a coalition of organizations, businesses and individuals supporting a Medicare-for-All type healthcare system. Dr. Retan is also State Coordinator of the Alabama chapter of Physicians for a National Health Care Program.
Dr. Retan was originally educated at Hamilton College, MIT and the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, New York. In the 1950s, he received his post-graduate training in hospitals of the Harvard Medical system before moving to Alabama as a faculty member for the University of Alabama in Birmingham. After more than 30 years of running his own internal medicine practice in Birmingham, he currently serves as a part-time physician and travels throughout the state to speak about universal healthcare. Dr. Retan is a member of the American College of Physicians, the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, and the Jefferson County Medical Society. For more information about Dr. Retan http://www.waldenretan.com
3) Fay Raines, PhD, RN, is President of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and Dean of UAHuntsville College of Nursing.As president of AACN, she testified before Congress in June 2009 on the need to strengthen support for nursing schools and other health professional programs. Dr. Raines was also among 160 healthcare experts who participated in an ABC News special on healthcare reform on June 24, 2009 held at the White House by President Obama.
Dr. Raines has served as dean of the UAHuntsville College of Nursing since 1990. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing at the University of Virginia, and her Ph.D. in nursing at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Dr. Raines also served UAHuntsville for more than nine years as Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness. For more information about Dr. Raines, http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=1076
PANEL DISCUSSION MODERATOR -- Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA is a George W. Merck Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 2009-2010.
Dr. Wyatt formerly served as Medical Director in a community clinic and was Chair of Utilization review at a medical center in Huntsville, AL where he also served as Chair of the Department of Medicine. He completed the clinical effectiveness program at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical School with a concentration in health policy, quality improvement, clinical epidemiology and clinical biostatistics. He completed the Executive Program at the University of Alabama Birmingham receiving the Master of Science in Health Administration degree in 2007. Dr. Wyatt is a former co-host of a weekly healthcare related radio program. He is currently serving as a George W. Merck Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 2009-2010.
_____________________________________
DIRECTIONS:
Trinity United Methodist Church, 607 Airport Road SW (near corner of Airport Rd and Whitesburg Drive)
The event is in Wesley Hall.
From downtown Huntsville:
Get onto Memorial Parkway going South.
Take the Airport Rd exit. Turn left under the freeway.
The church is on the right about 1/2 mile. (Just before Whitesburg Drive.)
Walk into the East side of the building for Wesley Hall.
From Madison:
Get onto I-565 going East towards Huntsville.
Take exit 19A. This is Memorial Parkway South / US 231 South exit. Follow the US 231 South signs.
Take the Airport Rd. exit. Turn left under the freeway.
The church is on the right about 1/2 mile. (Just before Whitesburg Drive.)
Walk into the East side of the building for Wesley Hall.
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