Lawrence University Economist Examines Health Care Cost Containment Strategies

APPLETON, WIS. -- Strategies for battling spiraling health care costs will be the focus of a Lawrence University Science Hall Colloquium.

Marty Finkler, professor of economics at Lawrence, presents "Whack-a-Mole and Other Questionable Approaches to Health Care Cost Control," Thursday, April 18 at 11:10 a.m. in Science Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.

A specialist in health care economics, Finkler will review previous, and ultimately, unsuccessful efforts during the past 20 years to contain health care costs. He also will discuss the advantages and inherit costs of three strategies based on consumer responsibility, global budgets and prevention that have shown signs of being more successful than previous attempts. Regardless of the approach, Finkler argues all sustainable strategies involve sacrifice and each organization that provides health care coverage needs to find the tradeoff that best matches its own individual mission.

Finkler, a member of the Lawrence faculty since 1979, co-founded the Menasha-based consulting firm Innovative Health Associates in 1993. A former Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in health care finance, he earned a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics at the University of California-San Diego, a master's degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science and his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Minnesota.