Paul Hughes-Cromwick

Altarum Author:

Health Economist and Senior Analyst, Altarum Institute

Paul Hughes-Cromwick is a health economist and Senior Analyst at Altarum Institute where he has worked since 2002. He has been involved in healthcare economic and policy analyses since receiving his master’s degree in 1981. Mr. Hughes-Cromwick has a B.S. in mathematics and philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. in applied economics from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts where he completed all non-dissertation requirements toward a Ph.D.

He was Chairman of the Board, Care Choices HMO, Farmington Hills, Michigan (until its sale), and is currently on the Board of Trustees of St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital in Pontiac, Michigan. Prior to working at Altarum, Mr. Hughes-Cromwick has worked for the University of Michigan School of Nursing; the Henry Ford Health System; the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health; the State of Connecticut, where he was research director for the Connecticut Partnership for Long Term Care Insurance; and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

Hughes-Cromwick is a member of the American Economic Association, AcademyHealth, Consumers for HealthCare Choices, and the National Association for Business Economics where he serves as Chairman of the Health Economics Roundtable.

Married with three children, his non-work interests include youth hockey, general fitness, music (piano), travel, and golf.

Health Care Costs, Health Savings Accounts, and a Transformed Health System

Monday, August 17, 2009

Topics:

Costs & Economic Analysis

Insurance

Health care should be consumer driven for reasons of both efficiency and ethics. When in possession of adequate information and faced with appropriate incentives, consumers make better choices for their own health than does any third party, regardless of whether that third party is motivated by the most worthy of intentions.