CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Two nationally known experts with widely opposing views on the government’s role in health care will kick off a new debate series at the University of Illinois.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Care Program, and limited government advocate Michael D. Tanner, of the Cato Institute, are panelists for the inaugural event in the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Series.
“Who Controls Your Health Care? A Debate on Free Markets vs. Government” will take place from 4 to 5:30 p.m. March 9 in Deloitte Auditorium at the Business Instructional Facility, 515 Gregory Drive, Champaign. A reception will follow.
The U. of I. Center for Business and Public Policy will host the debate, funded by the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government. The non-profit academy plans annual debates on issues involving individual rights and limited government.
Woolhandler also is a board member of Physicians for a National Health Care Program, an alliance of doctors, medical students and health professionals who support a universal, single-payer national health insurance program.
She is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and practices primary care internal medicine at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts. She has written more than 50 research articles on health-care access and financing, and has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Tanner is a senior fellow and health-care policy scholar at the Cato Institute, a nonprofit research foundation that promotes individual liberty, limited government and free markets.
He is a leading opponent of government-sponsored health insurance, and is a
co-author of “Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.” He appears regularly on network and cable news programs, and has written articles published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers.
The debate, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience, is free and open to the public.
