Audioconference 2: ERISA 101
March 12, 1999

Ms. Ladenheim has worked for seven years with the Forum at NCSL and its predecessor, the Intergovernmental Health Policy Project at the George Washington University, specializing in state-level access, financing and quality issues. Her research includes topics such as health care for the uninsured, small group insurance reform, managed care standards and comprehensive access reforms. She also teaches health policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Before joining the Forum, Ms. Ladenheim was executive director of the Maine Health Policy Advisory Council. As a policy analyst at the Project HOPE Center for Health Affairs, she conducted research on health care financing and the uninsured, including quantitative evaluations of wellness programs, utilization review and cost sharing. Other experience over three decades includes: health planning for a hospital project in Jamaica; coordinating quality assurance for a rural IPA; designing a prepaid health plan based in rural health clinics; practice protocol development and evaluation; and teaching family and community health and health policy at the professional and graduate levels.

After moving to Colorado over 20 years ago and working in state and local government in Colorado, Pat Butler has worked as a self-employed policy analyst on issues of health care financing, delivery, and regulation with state legislative and executive branch officials as well as with associations representing state governments. She has been a member of the National Academy for State Health Policy since its inception in 1987. Pat received her B.A. from the University of California in 1966, her law degree from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law in 1969, and her doctorate in health policy from the University of Michigan's School of Public Health in 1996. Among her publications are "Roadblock to Reform: ERISA Implications for State Health Care Initiatives" (1994), "Public Oversight of Managed Care Entities: Issues for State Policy Makers" (1996) and "State Managed Care Oversight: Policy Implications of Recent ERISA Court Decisions" (1998), published by the National Governors' Association, "Managed Care Plan Liability: An Analysis of Texas and Missouri Legislation" (1997), published by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and "Private-Sector Health Coverage: Variation in Consumer Protections under ERISA and State Law" (1996), published by George Washington University National Health Policy Forum.

Karl Polzer is a senior researcher at the National Health Policy Forum, located at The George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. In this position for the past seven years, he has written analytic papers and provided technical assistance to senior federal policymakers in both the legislative and executive branches of government, with emphasis on issues pertaining to ERISA, health insurance regulation, and the potential impacts of various health reform efforts. From 1990 to 1992, he worked at the Health Care Financing Administration, which oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Before earning a mid-career master of public administration degree at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1989, Polzer worked in marketing at the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in Boston. Before that, he was a reporter at a daily newspaper in Canada, where he won several journalism awards for covering environmental and criminal justice issues.