Preparing Staff of Congressional Committees for the Health Reform Debate

The Alliance for Health Reform—a nonpartisan, nonprofit health policy education group in Washington—held a series of invitation-only briefing sessions on the anticipated congressional debate on health care reform in 2009. These sessions were designed to prepare staff of congressional committees with primary jurisdiction over health care policy for the debate.

Key Results

• The sessions—held for senior-level staff from both the House and the Senate—began in September 2008 and ended in March 2009. Attendance ranged from 21 to 45 attendees from the House and seven to 45 attendees from the Senate. See the Bibliography for details.
• The alliance provided a Web site allowing access to the materials distributed during the sessions, including the speakers' presentations. Initially available to the invitees and attendees of the sessions only, the Web site is now open to the public.
• During the grant period, the alliance developed a briefing—"Healing Mind and Body: Behavioral Health and Reform"—held on Capitol Hill on July 17, 2009, and open to the public. A total of 246 individuals registered to attend the briefing. The briefing Web site contains downloadable video clips from the briefing, speaker presentations, source materials and more.

Funding
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) supported this project with a grant of $497,599.