Edmund Haislmaier

An expert in health care policy and markets at The Heritage Foundation, Edmund F. Haislmaier frequently is asked to help lawmakers design and draft specific reforms to the health system.

As the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Senior Research Fellow, Health and Welfare Policy, for the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, Haislmaier’s expertise includes health care tax policy, Medicare, Medicaid, foreign health systems, pharmaceuticals and health care price controls.

Haislmaier works on related bills with both state and federal legislators, particularly alternatives to the Affordable Care Act, popularly called Obamacare. He has developed innovative strategies for states to create consumer-centered health insurance markets by using their authority to regulate insurance.

Under his design, employers may opt to enroll workers in a state health insurance “exchange,” through which each worker then buys coverage of his or her choice. Employers avoid the difficulties of administering a traditional “one size fits all” group plan, while employees pick their own coverage and take it from job to job. No one loses current tax preferences or other benefits of employer-sponsored insurance.

This approach is a key element of Utah’s health care reforms, adopted in 2009. And in recent years, 15 other states have asked Haislmaier and his colleagues in Heritage’s Center for Health Policy Studies to help develop consumer-focused solutions for their troubled health systems.

In the past 25 years, he has developed particular expertise in the regulation of health insurance markets, the tax treatment of health benefits and pharmaceutical policy issues. He has published extensively on those and other health policy topics.

Haislmaier is in demand as a conference speaker and has testified before numerous federal and state legislative committees. He is a frequent guest on radio and television news and talk shows. His commentaries have been published in The Washington Times, New York Post, and National Review Online, among many others.

Before rejoining Heritage in 2005 as a Research Fellow, Haislmaier worked as a Health Policy Consultant from 1998 to 2004 and was Director of Health Care Policy in Pfizer Inc.’s Corporate Strategic Planning and Policy division from 1994 to 1997.

He originally came to Heritage in 1987 as the think tank’s first policy analyst for health care. He was named Senior Policy Analyst in 1994, then Senior Research Fellow in 2007.

Haislmaier is a member of the board of directors of the National Center for Public Policy Research. He holds a bachelor’s degree in History from St. Mary’s College in Maryland.