Simmons College recently announced plans to hold a series of public forums on national health care reform to explore health care legislation from provider, policy, and economic perspectives. The school will hold forums on April 3 and April 14 that will be free and open to the public. The first forum was held February 25. The public forums were developed through a collaboration between the Simmons’ School of Management, College of Arts and Science, and School of Nursing and Health Sciences.
The forum on April 3 is titled “Empowering Older Adults to Take Charge of Their Health,” and it will be held in Room C101 of Simmons’ Main College Building from 5:00 to 6:30 PM. The event will feature Jennifer Raymond, MBA, the director of evidence-based programs at Hebrew SeniorLife, and Ruth Palombo, Ph.D., RD, a senior health policy officer at Tufts Health Plan Foundation. Palombo is a key player in policy planning for the health and well-being of older adults in Massachusetts, and Raymond is seen as a leader in evidence-based programs for supporting senior health.
The forum on April 14 is titled “Moving Forward with Health Reform–Where?” and it will take place on the 5th floor of the School of Management from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. This public forum will take the form of a debate. The debate will feature Joseph Antos, a conservative critic of the Affordable Care Act from the American Enterprise Institute, and John McDonough of Harvard University, an architect of President Obama’s signature health care legislation and a major player in Massachusetts Health Reform.