Leonard D. Schaeffer, the Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair and professor at USC, was honored at a dinner hosted by USC President C. L. Max Nikias and Niki C. Nikias on March 4, 2013. Leonard Schaeffer and his wife, Pamela, gave a gift in 2009 that established the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, jointly housed at the USC Price School of Public Policy and the USC School of Pharmacy. In October, 2012, the Schaeffers generously extended their commitment to the USC Schaeffer Center with a $25 million gift.
“As health care assumes an increasingly prominent place in public policy discussions, the USC Schaeffer Center will play an even more central role, while offering a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective,” Nikias said. “The center brings together USC’s schools of public policy and pharmacy, drawing on collaborative scholarship to address the most complex questions facing health care today.”
Research from the Schaeffer Center has provided critical policy guidance and inventive solutions with the potential to transform health care systems. Research results — including novel analyses of preventive care, insurance competition, the fiscal future of Social Security and Medicare, co-payments and prescription drug adherence, and which medical specialties are most likely to face malpractice claims — are routinely published in top peer-reviewed journals and featured in leading media outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Politico and NPR. Schaeffer Center faculty members also deliver their research directly to policymakers through congressional and legislative testimony.