Topic: Preparing for implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the October launch of the federal health insurance coverage Marketplace (www.HealthCare.gov)
Expert: Gerald Friedman, a leading expert on the economics of health care and professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst -- http://www.umass.edu/economics/friedman.html
Available: By phone, email, or via satellite from on-campus TV studio in Amherst, Mass.
Contact: Jared Sharpe – 413-545-3809 / jsharpe[at]admin.umass.edu
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Gerald Friedman, one of the nation’s leading experts on the economics of health care, is available to discuss the preparations that the U.S. government and individual states are taking in advance of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, including the creation of state-based healthcare exchanges and the federal government’s health care Marketplace. A professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Friedman drafted the financing plans for single-payer healthcare system proposals of Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the U.S. government. Friedman is available to comment on:
-- The possible short- and long-term economic impacts from the implementation of the ACA-- How different states will be affected by "Obamacare," depending on whether their residents have access to a state-based exchange-- How much the success of Obamacare rides on the Obama administration's promotion of the exchanges to the American populace, especially in states that lack state-based exchanges-- Which Americans will be affected most when enrollment in the exchanges opens on October 1, and what they can expect if Obamacare meets all of its objectives-- Why the next logical step for American healthcare reform is a single-payer system, aka “Improved Medicare for All”
More information about Friedman, including a list of selected publications, can be found at http://www.umass.edu/economics/friedman.html. To schedule an interview with Gerald Friedman, or to request his comments on this issue, please contact: Jared SharpeNews and Media RelationsUniversity of Massachusetts AmherstPhone: 413-545-3809Email: jsharpe[at]admin.umass.eduwww.umass.edu/newsoffice ---------------------------------------
About Gerald Friedman
Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Gerald Friedman was born in New York City in 1955 to parents who believed that anyone who said they lived elsewhere was “only kidding.” (He still buys food mail-order from Zebars.) After graduation from Columbia College in 1977 he worked on the research staff of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. He moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to be closer to Steve’s Ice Cream (and Fenway Park) and to attend graduate school at Harvard where he earned a Ph.D. in economics. In addition to his 1998 book, State-Making and Labor Movements: The United States and France, 1876-1914, Professor Friedman is the author of numerous articles on topics in the labor history of the United States and Europe, as well as the evolution of economic thought and the history of slavery in the Americas. His teaching and research interests focus on economic history, labor history, labor economics, and the history of economic thought. His most recent book, Reigniting the Labor Movement: Restoring means to ends in a democratic labor movement (2008) assesses the decline of the labor movement in advanced capitalist democracies. He is currently working on an intellectual biography of Richard Ely, an early American economist, as part of a larger study of the decline of institutionalism in American economics. The editor of The Dollars and Sense Economic Crisis Reader, he has been a regular correspondent on the international financial crisis on Al-Jazeera television and other media outlets and a consultant to labor unions and to the legislature of the state of Vermont and to campaigns for single-payer health insurance in Colorado, Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and to Physicians for a National Health Plan. Professor Friedman lives in Amherst with his wife and his dog, Beowulf. He also has two college-age daughters.
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