By: Marc Ransford—
Muncie, IN— The Department of Economics will host the 2nd Annual T. Norman Van Cott Lecture in Political Economy and Liberty on Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. in the Arts & Journalism building, Room 175 on the campus of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Joseph Butz, Chief Operating Office, Kaiser Permanente, will discuss Free Markets and Health Care.
Joseph T. Butz serves as the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Delivery System Operations for Kaiser Permanente. In this role, Joe oversees the operations of a $4.3B regional integrated delivery system for a $70B system. Joseph joined Kaiser Permanente in 2015 from Sentara Healthcare where he served as the Senior Divisional Vice President, Cardiac and Transplant Services where he led the strategy and implementation of their system-wide cardiac service line.
Joseph has held multiple leadership positions across various health systems where he effectively developed and oversaw clinical operations during his career. He combines deep clinical operations expertise with strategic business skills to transform complex healthcare organizations. Throughout his career, he has succeeded in improving the quality of care, increasing operational efficiencies, expanding access and growing market share.
At Kaiser Permanente, Joseph is responsible for care delivered in a including administering 32+ ambulatory sites, 12 hospital facilities (720 Average Daily Census), 13 skilled nursing facilities, 12 home health agencies, 5 ambulatory surgery centers, 15 urgent cares, 5 urgent care plus departments, 2 call centers (23 million annual calls) and in excess of 8,000 union employees. Joseph holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management and a Doctor of Law from DePaul University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Ball State University.
The T. Norman Van Cott Lecturein Political Economy and Liberty Seriesis an annual event hosted by the Department of Economics at Ball State University. T. Norman Van Cott is a Professor of Economics Emeritus. He taught at Ball State for 38 years from 1977-2015 and was Department chair from 1985-2000. Under Van Cott’s leadership, the national visibility of the department rose as its scholarly productivity increased. Visitors to the campus included 1986 Nobel Prize winning economist James M. Buchanan, who received an honorary doctorate from Ball State in 1988. Public Choice economist Gordon Tullock visited for several days in 1990. Norman also cultivated the department’s and college’s relationship with Wally Miller, in honor of whose legacy the college is now named. Mr. Miller personally flew in Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker for a visit and speechto the larger Ball State and Indiana community. It is speakers of this caliber that inspire the vision of the Van Cott Lecture series.
