Health Affairs

The author is director of health policy at Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. On May 7, the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky and the Kentucky Rural Health Association (KRHA) convened the Doing Care Differently in Rural Kentucky health policy conference. This one-day event, held the day before the National Rural Health Association’s annual meeting in... Read the rest of this entry »

On April 19, 2013, the Washington, DC–based Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released a comprehensive report with several recommendations for reducing the cost and improving the quality of health care in the United States. Funded by the Peter G Peterson Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the report was part of the BPC’s Health Care Cost Containment Initiative, which was led by four government veterans: former Senate majority leaders, Tom Daschle and Bill Frist; former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Pete Domenici; and former White House Office of Management and Budget director and first director of the Congressional Budget Office, Dr. Alice Rivlin. The report was coauthored and reviewed by BPC Health Project directors, Katherine Hayes and William Hoagland, along with other staff and seasoned health policy experts, such as Paul B. Ginsburg, Chris Jennings, Sheila Burke, Steven Lieberman, and Joe Minarik.

What makes this initiative unique, the authors say, is its bipartisan approach and a focus that extends beyond just “federal health-costs and deficit reduction.” In a Washington Post op-ed, Daschle, Frist, Domenici, and Rivlin point to the report’s more than fifty major policy recommendations and an estimated $560 billion in debt and deficit reduction over the next decade. That savings, they say, “is the outgrowth of our work, not the goal.” The chief lesson is: “Until better care is prioritized over more care, our nation will continue to face a problem with health-care costs.” They admit there is no silver bullet and “[n]o single set of recommendations can fix the health-care system or the nation’s debt and deficit crisis overnight,” but they hope “this report can start a constructive, pragmatic dialogue among policymakers and political leaders”.

The authors are with Quantum Foundation, in West Palm Beach, Florida. This post is based on a consultant’s report. The authors also presented on this topic at the Grantmakers In Health annual meeting in March 2013. In philanthropy, it’s easy to focus on our successes. It’s obvious when a project or grant goes well. Often,... Read the rest of this entry »

I covered the Grantmakers In Health annual meeting in San Francisco in March. This meeting is always a wonderful occasion for me to meet or reacquaint myself with foundation staffers from around the United States. In this round-up post, I mention some interesting points made by various speakers at the event, which had some 550... Read the rest of this entry »

GrantWatch Blog invited Matthew Ingram of the Metta Fund, a health foundation that awards grants in San Francisco, to talk about a new program it is funding. Most of us can remember a coach who affected us profoundly at some point in our lives, and to whom we owe the credit for making suggestions that,... Read the rest of this entry »

The author is associate director and senior health policy analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, in Austin, Texas. On March 8, while a Texas House committee held our state’s first Medicaid expansion hearing, the Center for Public Policy Priorities hosted a legislative briefing with invited presentations by researchers from Rice University and George... Read the rest of this entry »

This blog post, with the original title of “Checking In with Grantmakers In Health’s New President and CEO,” first appeared on Health and Environmental Funders Network blog, which is called Giving InSight, on February 11: http://blog.hefn.org/2013/02/11/checking-in-with-grantmakers-in-healths-new-president-and-ceo/  ____________________________ HEFN [Health and Environmental Funders] Director Kathy Sessions spoke with Faith Mitchell, Grantmakers In Health’s [GIH's] newly appointed President and... Read the rest of this entry »

The president and CEO and the vice president of policy and communications at the Connecticut Health Foundation describe its new approach and the successes of its grantees. Foundations often employ the twin strategies of grant making and commissioning and advancing objective policy research, but rarely do the twain meet. Since its inception in 1999, the... Read the rest of this entry »

My GrantWatch column in the newly released February 2013 issue of Health Affairs focuses on what foundations around the country have been funding in these areas. Of course, the column includes only a sampling of foundation-funded activities. The column is free access to all. Health philanthropy has been exploring patient engagement in its grant making... Read the rest of this entry »

The author is the president and CEO of the Blue Shield of California Foundation, a statewide funder located in San Francisco. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act , there has been a persistent, urgent call to produce more primary care physicians. With many provisions of the health reform law to be implemented less... Read the rest of this entry »

Happy New Year! We compiled a list of the ten most-read posts during 2012, in case you missed any of these. The most-read GrantWatch Blog post in 2012 was on the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky’s Howard L. Bost Memorial Health Policy Forum held in September in Lexington. We invited author Gabriela Alcalde, who joined... Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a long time since I have done a round-up of posts on other philanthropy blogs that have caught my eye, so today is the day! Other topics covered below include social determinants of health (specifically, housing), “tasksharing” in global health, and charities’ use of data. I love having the opportunity to peruse the... Read the rest of this entry »

GrantWatch Blog invited this staffer from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York to report on two community forums it held earlier this month in Buffalo and Syracuse. With the presidential election over and major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) going into effect just about a year from now, what does... Read the rest of this entry »

It’s election season, and I have noticed that a few foundations are funding information dissemination efforts—including a report, a toolkit, a video, and a post-election event. For those voters who remain undecided, perhaps these resources will help you make a decision—at least on who has the best health care platform! Please note that this is just a... Read the rest of this entry »

In my GrantWatch column in the print and online versions of Health Affairs’ October issue, I update readers on what foundations have been funding in these areas. My column follows a year after a well-written, peer-reviewed GrantWatch paper by Faith Mitchell and Kathy Sessions on the same topics was published in our October 2011 issue.... Read the rest of this entry »

GrantWatch Blog invited the author, who recently joined the staff of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, to report on its recent Howard L. Bost Memorial Health Policy Forum, which was held in Lexington. On September 17, the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky held its tenth annual health policy forum in Lexington, Kentucky. (The forum was named... Read the rest of this entry »

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation sent out its list of 2012 fellows for what some call its “genius grants” yesterday. As I looked through the list of twenty-three new fellows, I was delighted to see the name of Eric Coleman of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He has done innovative work... Read the rest of this entry »

The author, director of state health policy at the California HealthCare Foundation, discusses how that funder has been working with California officials to support implementation of various pieces of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 at the state level. Federal health reform establishes the framework for sweeping changes to the nation’s health care delivery system... Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I would start off the week with some people news. I am a bit behind on my reading, but I wanted to let you know about four foundation leaders who were recently named to these lists. Modern Healthcare 2012 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare list Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the... Read the rest of this entry »

The author, director of health policy at the Missouri Foundation for Health, blogs about a recent report released by the St. Louis–based foundation. An often overlooked part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, Section 4302 requires that the US secretary of health and human services “ensure that any federally conducted or supported health care... Read the rest of this entry »