Meet Robert B. Friedland, director of the Center on an Aging Society, and Alan Weil, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.

Both the New Jersey Policy Forums on Health and Medical Care and the State Forums Partnership Program bring together health policy experts from around country to explore critical issues facing state health policymakers. In our Summer 2005 issue, we're pleased to feature Robert Friedland and Alan Weil. Dr. Friedland presented at the New Jersey Policy Forum on long-term care and wrote our cover article. Mr.Weil was a featured speaker at the State Forums Partnership Program Annual Meeting in June.

Robert B. Friedland, Ph.D. is the director of the Center on an Aging Society at Georgetown University and an associate professor of health systems administration in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at Georgetown University. The Center is a non-partisan public policy institute that examines the issues that affect younger and older families and, in particular, the impact of Dr. Friedland has also served as chief economist for Maryland's Medicaid program; senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute; Director of the American Association of Retired Person's Public Policy Institute; research director, National Academy of Social Insurance; and economist on the staff of the U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, better known as the Pepper Commission. Dr. Friedland has written on issues pertaining to the financing and delivery of health care and long-term care and retirement income security. He is the author of Facing the Costs of Long-Term Care.

For more information, visit the Center on an Aging Society Web site at www.aging-society.org and http://ltc.georgetown.edu for the Long-Term Care Financing Project at Georgetown.

Alan R. Weil is the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization dedicated to excellence in state health policy and practice. He spent seven years at the Urban Institute, directing Assessing the New Federalism, one of the largest privately funded social policy research projects ever undertaken in the United States. He was also executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing - the cabinet position responsible for Colorado's Medicaid and Medically Indigent programs, health data collection and analysis functions, health policy development, and health care reform. Mr. Weil is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley; the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; and Harvard Law School.

For information on the National Academy for State Health Policy and the August 7-9, annual meeting, visit www.nashp.org.