Visiting Prof. Thomas L. Greaney | Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences

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Prof. Greaney is the Chester A. Myers Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Health Law Studies at St. Louis University School of Law. He holds a secondary appointment as Associate Professor of Hospital and Health Care Administration at the St. Louis University School of Public Health. He is a leading authority on health law who has spent the last 20 years examining the evolution of the health care industry. “There was a time when health care was dominated by physician interests,” says Prof. Greaney. “We moved to a situation where consumers were supposed to be in control. Now, health care organizations are calling the shots. We’ve seen a lot of structural change and a lot of law being developed as prosecutors go after fraud and try to maintain a safety net for consumers.”

Prof. Greaney has long been an advocate for consumers. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1973, he worked as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill. From 1974-1976, he was a law clerk with the Federal Communications Commission. He was then hired as a senior trial attorney and ultimately as an assistant chief in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He spent a decade supervising civil and criminal antitrust litigation involving health care and worked on policy formulation and legislative matters.

Prof. Greaney moved to St. Louis University School of Law after completing two fellowships and a visiting professorship at Yale Law School. “Health care antitrust policy has a direct impact on people,” says Greaney. “Entering academia provided me with the opportunity to write about and advocate for the things I believe in.”

Prof. Greaney’s extensive body of scholarly writing on health care and antitrust law includes articles published in some of the country's most prestigious legal and medical journals. He is co-author of the treatise, Health Law (2d edition); of the textbook, Health Law: Cases, Materials and Problems (5th edition); and of Health Law, Selected Statutes and Regulations, all published by Thomson/West. He is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Health Law, published by the American Health Lawyers Association.

More information

Medicare “Modernization:” Nation Building or Insurgency?

Prof. Thomas L. Greaney, JD
St. Louis University

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Theater
Coffman Memorial Union

With the passage of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), Congress has tried to encourage a vast migration by beneficiaries from traditional fee-for-service Medicare to managed care. Congress has attempted this by using financial incentives for providers and managed care organizations and by re-designing benefits for enrollees. From one perspective, the new law can be seen as an ambitious attempt to create markets and competition where little existed before. To promote this transition, the MMA offers a mix of subsidies, complex regulation, and new benefits that may induce significant changes in both the supply and demand for Medicare services. On the other side of the coin, the new law contains provisions that are unmistakably designed to create a domain of competition that is not a level playing field. Beneficiaries may be seduced by aggressive marketing, especially for new drug benefits, and by bait-and-switch tactics to leave a program that has consistently enjoyed enormous popular approval. Ultimately, however, the complexity of the new law, the probability that the federal government may reduce its financial support in the future, and the bewildering choices facing seniors mean that change may be slower than the law’s proponents hoped. Further, a close examination of the competitive dynamics that the MMA has set in motion reveals a number of formidable obstacles to the development of markets that will efficiently serve the needs of Medicare beneficiaries.

Following this presentation, participants would be able to:

Describe recent changes in Medicare.
State how the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) tries to create new markets and competition.
Describe strengths and weaknesses in MMA’s approach.

The University of Minnesota is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The University of Minnesota designated this educational activity for a maximum of 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity has been designed to meet the Minnesota Board of Nursing continuing education requirements. This activity offers 1.8 contact hours of continuing education, however, the nurse is responsible for determining whether this activity meets the requirements for acceptable continuing education.

Continuing legal education credit (CLE) for attorneys was requested (1.5 hours).

It is the policy of the University of Minnesota’s Office of Continuing Medical Education to ensure balance, independence, objectivity and scientific rigor in all its sponsored educational activities. All faculty participating in sponsored programs are expected to disclose to the program audience any real or apparent conflict of interest related to the content of their presentation.