Category: Research
State Mitigation of COVID-19 Related Costs
On April 25, 2020, Health Affairs published a piece by one of the editors of Health Policy News, entitled “States Should Act Now To Mitigate Commercial Insurance Costs Associated With COVID-19”[1]. The piece focuses on actions states can take to potentially mitigate costs associated with COVID-19—specifically, examining the impact that COVID-19-related health insurance expenditures in ...
Health Policy News – Summer 2019
Introduction As in past years, Health Policy News is marking the summer season with the publication of one special edition. For summer 2019, we have prepared a roundup of pending federal legislation—in particular, efforts to protect consumers from rising health care costs (including surprise medical bills), to promote Medicare for All, and to preserve Affordable ...
How Can Communities Support Fresh Produce Programs for Their Citizens?
As we reported in May, funding for a first-of-its-kind Produce Prescription (“Produce RX”) pilot program was included in the 2018 Farm Bill. Produce RX programs seek to connect physicians and patients with vendors that accept prescriptions for fruits and vegetables. The federal government is currently evaluating proposals from organizations hoping to use this funding to launch ...
Health Policy News – May 2019
Introduction This month, we are launching a new series of articles about alternative approaches to healthcare delivery—with a focus in this edition on approaches targeting social determinants of health, specifically nutrition, via health coverage. Stay tuned for an upcoming white paper that will include a review of Accountable Care models in a number of states, ...
Eat Your Veggies!
How do we increase the promotion of produce prescriptions in the never-ending quest to implement and integrate social determinants of health? As of 2010, diet has surpassed smoking as the leading cause of death for Americans—which translates to hundreds of billions of dollars being spent to combat diseases stemming from poor health and diet. Data ...
Highlights from The Workers Compensation Research Institute 2019 Annual Issues and Research Conference
February 28-March 1, 2019, marked the 35th annual Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) Issues and Research Conference. The theme of this year’s event, “Breaking Down Barriers to Improve Injured Workers’ Outcomes,” signified two core ideas that were evident in each session. The first was that workers compensation can no longer operate in a silo. As ...
The Science of Addiction
Research presented by Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, at NatCon used brain imaging to dramatically illustrate how addiction changes brain function. Dr. Volkow’s research demonstrates, for example, that the frontal cortex – or reward center – of the brain weakens as a result of alcohol and illicit drug use. ...