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 blogs from our thought leaders, including Fund President Christopher F. Koller.
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.
Focus Area
Publication
May 2025 Sarah Kinsler, Caitlin Otter,
This document describes the hospital-specific market basket methodology, which states can use to calculate hospital performance against the hospital price growth target. The Peterson-Milbank Program for Sustainable Health Care Costs funded the development of code that can be used to perform this analysis using state all-payer claims data. The document also includes key design and implementation considerations for states pursuing a hospital price growth target. More
April 2025 Hayden Rooke-Ley, Megha Reddy, Neil Mehta, Yashaswini Singh, Erin C. Fuse Brown,
Private equity firms, insurance companies, and other corporate entities are using MSOs to bypass state prohibitions on the corporate practice of medicine, allowing large corporations to functionally own medical practices and influence clinical care. More
Blog Post
April 2025 Alex Reger, Lisa Sementilli ,
The Connecticut Office of Health Strategy is working toward engaging employers in the policy process. More
February 2025 Sabrina Corlette, Karen Davenport,
Unsustainable increases in health care costs are leading to high rates of medical debt, sapping the vitality of small businesses, straining state budgets, and dampening wage growth. States have the power to help reduce health care costs, and several are pursuing policies to do so. More
February 2025 Robert Seifert, Emma Rourke, Mary Jo Condon,
This report describes the experiences of states that have designed and implemented policies to pursue these multiple targets and gathers lessons from their experiences to inform future policy development. Interviews with state officials and a multi-state convening revealed the strategies states used to establish their targets and their experiences implementing them. Officials described challenges to implementation and efforts to overcome them. More
January 2025 Anna Rothenberg, Michael Bailit,
This brief outlines seven potential strategies to address high and rapidly rising hospital prices, accompanied by examples from states that have successfully implemented these approaches. More
January 2025
In a two-part primer for legislators, the Peterson-Milbank Program for Sustainable Health Care Costs explains health care cost trends and leading cost drivers, as well as state policies to track and slow health care spending. More
December 2024 Grace Flaherty,
State health care cost growth target programs aim to control health care spending by setting an annual goal for the maximum rate at which health care costs should increase that is tied to income and/or economic growth. In addition to reporting spending growth at the state, insurer market, and individual insurer levels, states with cost growth target programs report spending growth for large provider organizations, such as health systems and hospitals. Reporting on provider organization cost growth is an important strategy for keeping providers accountable for constraining spending growth. However, accurately attributing spending to these large provider entities can be challenging. More
December 2024
In this Peterson-Milbank Program for Sustainable Health Care Cost-sponsored video produced by the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser… More
November 2024 Sarah Bartelmann,
The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is implementing a mix of transparency, performance improvement plans, and financial penalties to ensure health plans and provider organizations take actions to meet the state’s target. More
