“How Did They Change Women’s Health? Can We?”

This project examines how policy change happens. I draw on a year’s worth of interview data that I collected on a rag tag assembly of legal activists, bureaucrats, and state legislators who managed to rid the state’s safety net healthcare system- its primary payer of pregnancy services- entirely of private insurers. My related study uses a quasi-experimental design and birth certificate data and finds significant improvements in prenatal use, birthweight, and gestational age in the state-run system that replaced insurer contracting. The proposed study seeks to understand how they managed to pull off the unprecedented feat and how other states can replicate their approach.

• Zewde, N., Edwards, R., & Gordon, K. (2023). Reconsidering Medicaid Privatization: Weighing the Evidence and the Alternatives. New York, NY: The Roosevelt Institute. Retrieved from The Roosevelt Institute website: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/reconsidering-medicaid-privatization/
• Zewde, N., Edwards, R., & Gordon, K. (2023). Examining the extent of data available for policy planning and oversight of Medicaid managed care insurers. Health Services Research, 58(2), 242–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.14121
• Zewde, N., & Perez, V. (2024). Incentives and Operations of Medicaid Managed Care Plans in New York State: Implications for Procurement Design and Market Evolution. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 61, 00469580241258653. https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580241258653