NASMD holds fall conference.

The National Association of State Medicaid Directors held its fall meeting in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 12-15, with more than 700 attendees and 48 state Medicaid directors and four Territories directors in attendance. Among the featured plenary speakers were HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt; Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services representatives from AARP and Dennis Smith, director of CMS.

The opening plenary session addressed the largest health policy issue facing Congress in 2007, reauthorization of the SCHIP program. Other plenary sessions addressed the value-driven healthcare system and healthcare in the 21st century. Breakout sessions included topics such as behavioral health, obesity prevention, managed care and the results of the NASMD long-term care and pharmacy surveys.

Prior to the meeting, NASMD Executive Committee Chair David Parrella presented testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the six proposed CMS rules. He spoke in favor of the states' need to retain some element of creativity in the design of their programs, and the detrimental effects of cuts to federal funding. The full text of his testimony can be viewed: http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071101111210.pdf

Select presentations and speaker biographies are available on the NASMD website: http://www.nasmd.org/conferences/past.asp

A web cast of the plenary sessions is available at http://www.kaisernet-work.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=2427