Press Releases: Northwest
August 18, 2004
At Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research 2004 Saward Lecture
Noted Canadian health economist to address cost of preserving privilege in American health care
PORTLAND, Ore. – Professor Robert Evans, Canada's leading health economist, will deliver the 2004 Saward Lecture on Wednesday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Newmark Theatre at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. His lecture is titled "What are you paying for, Sam? The cost of preserving privilege in American health care." The lecture is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research. Tickets are free but required and can be obtained by calling (503) 335-2466.
Dr. Evans will examine how the institutions and policies that preserve inequalities in access to and use of health care in the United States cost the country economically and worsen public health. He argues that this inequality imposes greater inefficiency in four key areas:
- excessive administrative costs for less egalitarian financing systems;
- costs for health services and products inflated by excessive marketing activities;
- inappropriate and excessive use of services, costing both health and money;
- higher mortality stemming from income inequality and social stress.
Dr. Evans asks, "Do Americans really know what they are paying, and what they are getting for their money? Are there any policies Americans can—or should—support that will reduce inequalities in health care and produce better health outcomes? How expensive, ineffective, and inequitable does health care have to become before Americans will support true reform?"
Dr. Evans is a professor of health economics and a member of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the University of British Columbia. The author of more than 200 publications, his major works include Strained Mercy: The Economics of Canadian Health Care (1984) and Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not? (1994). He received his undergraduate degree in political economy from the University of Toronto in 1964 and his doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 1970. He served as a member of the National Forum on Health, chaired by the Prime Minister of Canada, from 1994 to 1997. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance of the United States. In 2001, he became the first Canadian (and the second non-American) to win the prestigious Baxter International Foundation Prize for Health Services Research.
Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research, founded in 1964, is a non-profit research institution whose mission is advancing knowledge to improve health.
Kaiser Permanente is a group practice health care organization founded in 1945 and serving the health needs of more than 445,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
