The Fund supports networks of state health policy decision makers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund supports two state leadership programs for legislative and executive branch state government officials committed to improving population health.
The Fund identifies and shares policy ideas and analysis to advance state health leadership, strong primary care, and sustainable health care costs.
Keep up with news and updates from the Milbank Memorial Fund. And read the latest posts from our staff and guest authors.
The Fund publishes The Milbank Quarterly, as well as reports, issues briefs, and case studies on topics important to health policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is is a foundation that works to improve population health and health equity.
Health Insurance
August 2026 Pamela Herd,
America’s long-term care policy approach is poverty-based, requiring most older adults to spend down their assets to qualify for limited, Medicaid-funded support, which is biased toward institutional care and plagued by bureaucratic complexity and enrollment hurdles. More
Health Insurance State Health Policy
August 2026 Lucinda B. Leung, Valerie P. Nguyen, Christine M. Thompson, Jasmeen J. Santos, Catherine E. Brayton, Susan L. Ettner, José J. Escarce, Alexander D. McCourt,
Telehealth can improve access to medical and mental health care for rural and under-resourced communities. More
Population Health
August 2026 Ali H. Mokdad, Laura Dwyer-Lindgren, Christopher J.L. Murray,
Over the past three decades, mortality from leading causes such as cardiovascular disease and cancer has declined in the United States, but the burden of chronic, disabling conditions, including musculoskeletal disorders, mental and substance use disorders, and obesity, has grown or stagnated, widening the gap between total years lived and years lived in good health. More
August 2026 Mary Louise Gilburg,
Hayley Piazza is a Master of Public Health student at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, where she studies health policy analysis.… More
State Health Policy Leadership
August 2026 Pantelis Paliouras,
Using estimates from RAND Health, our new Data Dashboard shows at a high level how state Medicaid funds will be affected by changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill. More
Behavioral Health
August 2026 Andrew Anderson,
Since passage of the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, the United States has made significant investments in behavioral health crisis response… More
Social drivers of health
August 2026 Mark D. Hayward, Mateo P. Farina,
In this perspective, we have reviewed the historical evidence on the association between education and health in the United States, arguing that attention to public policies related to both education and technology are fundamentally important in understanding historical changes in the educational divide in life expectancy. More
Public Health
August 2026 Jonathan C. Heller,
Context: Public health is inherently political, yet it has struggled in recent decades to influence the societal decisions that shape population… More
Health Care Affordability
August 2026 Debra Lubar,
In her latest post, Debra Lubar discusses how unexpected, large medical bills can upend finances for many families. More
Immigration Policy
August 2026 Jordan Herring, Carlos E. Rodriguez-Diaz,
In 2018, proposed changes to the public charge rule—amid intensified anti-immigrant rhetoric and heterogeneous local immigration enforcement—were widely publicized. More