The AARP Public Policy Institute is hosting a Senate Briefing on the escalating costs of health coverage. The costs of health coverage are again escalating much more rapidly than general inflation - which puts increasing pressure on wages and jobs, access to needed health care, employer and family budgets, productivity, and the global competitiveness of American firms. In this National Coalition on Health Care Forum, a distinguished panel will analyze and explain the causes and effects of these accelerating costs - and strategies for slowing the rates of increase and reducing their harmful impacts. The expert panelists are Paul Ginsburg , Director of the Brookings Institution Center on Health Policy; Norman Topping Chair in Medicine and Public Policy, University of Southern California; and Director of the Leonard D. Schaeffer Initiative for Innovation in Health Policy; Sara R. Collins, Vice President, Health Care Coverage and Access, The Commonwealth Fund; Damon A. Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel, AFL-CIO; and Scott A. Weltz, Principal and Consulting Actuary, Milliman, and coauthor of the 2015 Milliman Medical Index report. The panel will be moderated by John Rother, President and CEO, National Coalition on Health Care. RSVPs are required, please email smcgue@nchc.org if you will be attending. The event will take place on Monday, March 21, 2016, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Russell Senate Office Building, Room 485.