Jeanne Scott Matthews has been one of the nation’s leading health care lobbyists with more than 35 years “inside-the-beltway” — working both within and without the government, directing the Washington DC office for the Catholic Healthcare Association (CHAUSA) and serving during the first Reagan administration as senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel, for the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the friendly folks that brought you DRGs and physician prospective payment under Medicare.

   Leaving office at the end of President Reagan’s first term in December 1984, she noted the piles of “paper” she had generated for the nation’s health care system, literally boxes and boxes duplicated in 5,500 hospitals, 55,000 pharmacies, and 650,000 physician offices. An Epiphany! She was personally responsible for having deforested vast acres of land for this paper now plastering the health care industry. Reformed, since then she has tried to atone herself by working for change in the way the way information is processed in health care — trying to save at least some of the estimated 18–25% of health care spending that is “administrative overhead” — perhaps as much as $500 BILLION in 2008 alone.

   She was instrumental in founding the Association for Electronic Health Care Transactions (AFEHCT), served on the Board and Executive Committee of the Workgroup on EDI in Health Care (WEDI), and helped draft the original “Bond Bill” which became the administrative simplification provisions in HIPAA. In 2003, she was presented with a plaque, naming her "Grandmother of HIPAA" by AFEHCT, for her work getting this landmark health care information technology and privacy legislation drafted, passed and implemented. She has headed an industry task force on the issues of health care privacy and security.

   Jeanne turns 65 this year and becomes a Medicare beneficiary herself. As a recent victim of the health care industrial complex, her views have sharpened and with advancing years, the inhibitions of her youth have faded away. Prepare yourself, and maybe engage with her in a little dialog about the issues of the day. 

Healthcare Speeches (TO BE ADAPTED TO TODAY’S REALITY):

 1) Health Care Issues Up the Wahzoo

    We have a laundry list of issues facing the US health care industry, from 47.6 million uninsured, another 60 million "underinsured" with unmanageable deductibles and co-pays that have made health care bills the number one cause of personal bankruptcies, to 25 million "baby-boomers" about to start flooding the Medicare program; from double-digit increases in health care costs to bioterrorism -- and everything in between. What to do, what to do. Come and see what is happening and what you may be able to do about it.

2) 111th Congress: What Can We Expect? (to be adapted to today’s reality)

   Is socialized medicine the inevitable next step? Are we merely spinning our wheels waiting for many policy experts now feel is the inevitable collapse of the U.S. health care system? Jeanne Scott frames the issues, prospects for healthcare legislation and gets you started on finding the solutions.