Medicaid Managed Care - U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging

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also apparent that structuring a plan that serves this population
is very different from creating a plan for the younger, healthier
population that managed care has traditionally served.
Through these forums the <strong>Committee</strong> will examine the current
state of the managed care industry. We will learn about both the
successes and the failures and discover where more work needs to
be done. Finally, I hope these forums will provide leadership for
States and advocates to work together to develop managed care
programs which will provide quality care for all populations.
OPENING STATEMENT OF MS. SUSAN CHRISTENSEN
Ms. CHRISTENSEN. I am Susan Christensen, and I am a Fellow
with the Aging <strong>Committee</strong>, with Senator Grassley's staff. Also here
we have, with Senator Grassley's staff Hope Hegstrom, and Ken
Cohen is here from Senator Breaux's staff on the <strong>Committee</strong>.
This is the first in a series of four forums on managed care. Individually,
several Aging <strong>Committee</strong> staff have been following the research
and changes in managed care for some time, but our interest
became acute when we conducted a hearing recently on the special
needs of people with health conditions who were eligible for
Medicare and <strong>Medicaid</strong>.
There are some significant issues that need to be resolved when
we talk about managed care for people with special needs, and we
have divided these issues roughly into four main themes, which are
the topics of our four forums. We won't cover all the issues, but we
hope to give you a sense of the amount of work that has been done
and that still needs to be done; and we will have the generous support
of the GAO staff throughout all this, which we appreciate very
much.
Today, we will start with the basics. Our panelists are here to
give you a picture of what we mean when we say a "person with
special needs." These are citizens who don't just need more care,
they need care delivered in certain ways for it to be effective. Within
the category of special needs, there are broad variations.
Some information that you will hear today is very basic, but each
of our panelists is an expert on the health care system as it applies
to the populations that they represent. So I hope you will take the
opportunity to ask them any questions that might come to mind as
you hear them speak. We have some forms that you can use; jot
your questions down as you listen, and you can ask them at the
end.
We plan to talk for about an hour, and we'll have half an hour
after that for questions and interactions. We are making a record
of today, and we'll make a record of each of our forums which will
be available from the committee later when we finish up.
Future forums will build on this one. The next one is July 8 and
will look at the existing managed care industry and current approaches
to meeting the needs of individuals that we'll hear about
toda.
fter that, on July 15, we will focus specifically on how plans
measure quality for a population that is so statistically small.
On July 22, we'll look at the State of the States to contract for
managed care plans that might be necessary for special needs.