One recent topic we’ve been exploring is health care affordability. After we worked with Altarum’s Healthcare Value Hub to understand more about how people from around the state felt about a wide range of health system issues, including the cost and quality of health care, we hosted a convening to dive deeper into the issue. By bringing together people with relevant experience, we unearthed gainful insights, and hearing from multiple perspectives enhanced our shared learnings. After the convening, Sami Schrage Bunk, MFH Health Policy Strategist, built on that discussion in a blog released late last year. The blog detailed some of what the Missouri legislature has done, as well as MFH, and urged providers, insurers, employers, and elected officials to work together to rein in costs.
Another area of focus of the health care cost crisis that we’ve narrowed in on is the price of prescription drugs. Despite growing concerns shared among a majority of Missourians about being able to afford needed medications, little was widely known about what should be done to bring costs down. So Anam Khan, MFH Health Policy Associate, developed a series of four policy briefs to provide an overview of some of the ways states and others are responding to rising prices. These briefs are geared toward distilling critical information and providing context to what’s happening nationwide, including potential solutions.
