Eric M. Patashnik, Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, and Chair of the Department of Political Science convened a conference, "Medicaid at 60: From Welfare Medicine to America's Most Important Health Care Program," at the Watson Institute on October 20-21. The goal of the interdisciplinary conference is to produce a special issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law (JHPPL). The project is supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
"When the Medicaid program was created in 1965, it was very much in the shadow of the Medicare program," said Patashnik. "Yet over the past six decades, Medicaid has emerged as the foundation of America's healthcare safety net. About one in five Americans today receive health coverage through Medicaid, including one out of every three children. The main aim of the project is to explore Medicaid's historical development, current operations and social impacts, and future possibilities."
In his introductory remarks, Patashnik stated that he expected the special issue to be "a key resource for scholars and practitioners in the coming decade." He said the main goal of the conference was "to make sure authors receive critical feedback on their work." He noted that while the papers were already "in great shape," they would be "looking for ways to create more connective tissue between the papers."
Patashnik said there were already common themes emerging from the papers, including "issues of racial and ethnic disparities in health coverage, policy feedback, and ways in which Medicaid both improves lives dramatically, but also with limitations due to administrative burdens, partisan polarization and institutional fragmentation." Patashnik said he wanted the group to "draw out practical lessons for policymakers and advocates that want to make sure that Medicaid is strong going forward and more effective in reaching vulnerable communities and addressing problems such as homelessness."
Participants included many of the nation's top health policy scholars who came from a number of universities, including Brown University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, University of Kentucky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Upstate Medical University and Yale University.
Conference sessions were organized by themes including, "The Scope and Limitations of Medicaid Expansion," "Overcoming Inequalities? Medicaid in the American Political Economy," "Administrative Burden and Policy Feedback in Medicaid" and "Consequences of Policy Fragmentation: Continuity and Change in the Medicaid Population."
"The Watson Institute offers an ideal setting for convening leading social scientists to present cutting-edge research on critical issues," said Patashnik. "At Watson, we are not only studying the development of public policy but analyzing the outcomes that major social programs produce and searching for ways to make government work better."