Katherine Baicker (born May 23, 1971) is an American health economist best known for the Oregon Medicaid health experiment. She serves as the dean of the University of Chicago

Harris School of Public Policy The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, also referred to as "Harris Public Policy," is the public policy school of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located on the University's main campus in ...

Biography

Baicker received her

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

in 1993 and her Ph.D. in

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in 1998. She began her academic career teaching economics at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

from 1998 to 2005 and her political career in 2001, serving as a senior economist for the President's

Council of Economic Advisors The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...

. From 2005-2007 she taught public policy at the University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs. During this period she rejoined the Council of Economic Advisors as a congressionally confirmed chief economist. In 2007 she moved to

where she held positions in the

Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health until 2017 when she accepted the position of dean at the

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. She currently serves on the Editorial Boards of

Health Affairs ''Health Affairs'' is a monthly peer-reviewed healthcare journal established in 1981 by John K. Iglehart; since 2014, the editor-in-chief is Alan Weil. It was described by ''The Washington Post'' as "the bible of health policy". Abstracting an ...

, the

Journal of Health Economics The ''Journal of Health Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles about health economics and related fields concerning human health care and medicine. The journal is published six times annually by Elsevier. The ed ...

, and the Forum for Health Economics and Policy; as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of AcademyHealth; on the

Congressional Budget Office The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the United States Congress, legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress. Ins ...

's Panel of Health Advisers; and as a Commissioner on the

Medicare Payment Advisory Commission The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is an independent, non-partisan legislative branch agency headquartered in Washington, D.C. MedPAC was established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 105–33). The BBA formed MedPAC by merg ...

. She is a Director at

Eli Lilly and Company Eli Lilly and Company is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 countries. The company was founded in 1876 by, and named after, Colonel ...

Research

Her research areas include

health economics Health economics is a branch of economics concerned with issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behavior in the production and consumption of health and healthcare. Health economics is important in determining how to improv ...

welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

, and

public finance Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy. It is the branch of economics that assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achiev ...

, with a particular focus on the financing of health insurance, spending on public programs, and

fiscal federalism As a subfield of public economics, fiscal federalism is concerned with "understanding which functions and instruments are best centralized and which are best placed in the sphere of decentralized levels of government" (Oates, 1999). In other words ...

. She believes in Medicare copayments as a way of reducing medical spending on unnecessary care. Copayments should be limited to a maximum patient contribution, to avoid patients having to pay catastrophic expenses that would defeat the purpose of insurance. Medicare clients should not have to buy supplemental insurance to avoid that risk. But copayments should be low for services that are effective at improving health.Testimony before the House of Representatives
June 26, 2013 Her research has been published in journals such as ''

'', the ''

Journal of Public Economics The ''Journal of Public Economics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering public economics, with particular emphasis on the application of modern economic theory and methods of quantitative analysis. It provides a forum for discussio ...

'', and the ''

Quarterly Journal of Economics ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press for the Harvard University Department of Economics. Its current editors-in-chief are Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan ...

'', and has been featured in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'', and on

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

. She is currently one of the leaders of a research program investigating the many effects of expanding

health insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among m ...

coverage in the context of a randomized Medicaid expansion in

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

References

External links

Home Page at the Harvard School of Public Health
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baicker, Katherine 1971 births 21st-century American economists American women economists Dartmouth College faculty Harvard School of Public Health faculty Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Health economists Harvard Kennedy School faculty Living people UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs faculty University of Chicago faculty Yale College alumni United States Council of Economic Advisers 21st-century American women

Biography

Research

See also

References

External links