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.
June 2025 Hannah Rahim, Aaron S. Kesselheim,
Prescription drug prices in the United States are substantially higher than in other high-income countries, with US prices reported to be an average of 2.78 times those of other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.1 In response to these high prices, along with an opaque supply chain that can lead to substantial discrepancies in prices across different payors, states have passed drug price transparency laws that require manufacturers to disclose information on drug prices. More
June 2025 MATTHEW S. McCOY, MARTHA E. GAINES, STEVEN JOFFE, Genevieve Pham-Kanter, EMILY A. LARGENT, Bernard Lo, HOLLY FERNANDEZ LYNCH, ALLISON M. WHELAN, Michelle M. Mello,
Leaders at many of the country’s top academic medical centers earned—in addition to their institutional salaries—hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as directors of pharmaceutical and device companies. Critics have urged academic institutions to rethink conflict of interest policies governing leaders’ outside activities, which are understood to pose not only individual conflicts for leaders themselves but also institutional conflicts for their academic employers. More
June 2025 Magdalena Cerdá, DANIEL B. NEILL, ELLICOTT C. MATTHAY, JOHNATHAN A. JENKINS, BRANDON D. L. MARSHALL, Katherine Keyes,
People in the United States are dying at record numbers from overdose. Overdose deaths increased from fewer than 17,000 deaths in 1999 to an estimated 100,000 deaths approximately 25 years after, with a peak of almost 108,000 deaths in 2022. Racial/ethnic minoritized groups are now particularly affected: in 2023, the highest rates of overdose were among non-Hispanic Black and American Indian/Alaska Native Americans. Although overdoses increasingly involve both opioids and stimulants, opioids contribute to over three-quarters of all overdose deaths, primarily driven by illegally manufactured synthetic opioids like fentanyl. More
June 2025 Marco Thimm-Kaiser, Katherine Keyes,
The potential adverse effects of social media use for adolescents have received substantial attention. In response, a growing number of state-level social media regulations are emerging in the United States. These policy interventions are being implemented in the context of mixed scientific evidence, forcing policymakers to weigh the need for proactive regulation against the limitations of extant research. We explore policymakers’ publicly stated rationales for social media regulations and contextualize their claims within extant scientific literature. More
June 2025 Devin English, Ty A. Robinson, Lori S. Hoggard, Felix M. Muchomba, Sharifa Z. Williams, Joel C. Cantor, Paul R. Duberstein, Brett M. Millar,
Reducing police expenditures and increasing housing expenditures may decrease Black–White inequities in years of potential life lost to suicide and police-perpetrated killing. More
June 2025 Annette M. Dekker, Adrian Yen, Andrea Larco Canizalez, Yesenia Perez, David Salazar, Bita Ghafoori, Dorit Saberi, Breena R. Taira,
The Trauma Recovery Center (TRC) model brings comprehensive care to underserved victims of crime, with improvements in PTSD symptoms and quality of life. Funding concerns were the central limitation in model implementation according to TRC staff. More
June 2025 Brent D. Fulton, Daniel R. Arnold, Jordan M. Wolf, Richard M. Scheffler,
This study identifies states that have established health care cost commissions (HCCCs), examines state-level political and economic factors associated with their establishment, and reports which of these states have also enacted health care competition-related laws that further equip these commissions. More
June 2025 Dennis P. Scanlon, Jillian B. Harvey, Cheryl L. Damberg, Pratiksha Mahendra Bhagat, Yunfeng Shi,
In this article, we discuss why reliance on transaction prices and market share alone is not sufficient for effective health policy development and regulatory enforcement in health care markets that are imperfectly competitive. We discuss the need to better measure the output produced by health care suppliers and to capture the costs of producing that output. More
June 2025 Rebecca Brooks Smith, Gabriella Aboulafia, Benjamin D. Sommers,
From the pre- to post-ACA period, Medicaid take-up rates among eligible individuals increased, and these gains persisted during the beginning of the unwinding period, potentially reflecting increased outreach efforts under the Biden administration. However, areas of vulnerability remain among young adults, working adults, AI/AN individuals, and those in rural areas. More
June 2025 Raquel Burgess, Tanja Srebotnjak, Christine Lin, Lawrence Grierson, Daniel C. Esty, Yusuf Ransome, Nicholas Freudenberg,
This article seeks to advance discussion on two key priorities related to the commercial determinants of health (CDH): 1) the development of mechanisms to measure and monitor the practices of commercial entities, and 2) the development of effective policy recommendations for addressing the CDH. More
June 2025 Sarah E. Gollust, Kristina Medero, Quin Mudry Nelson, Ceron Ford, Erika Franklin Fowler, Jeff Niederdeppe, Rebekah H. Nagler,
Public health communicators often discuss health equity–related concepts, but it is not clear what strategies they use or what resources can support them to overcome challenges they face. More
May 2025 Kate McEvoy, Hannah Maniates,
Medicaid has both greatly advanced the scope and integration of mental health and substance use disorder services among payers and remains a work in progress with respect to scaling and funding these services across the country. More
April 2025 Mark Schlesinger, Deepon Bhaumik,
Context: Health insurance reform in the United States has focused on expanding enrollment, a goal inhibited by complex insurance provisions. Research… More
April 2025 Rachel Donnelly, Mateo P. Farina,
Mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression) continues to be a major public health concern in the United States that impacts millions of individuals, their families, and communities. Approximately 21% of adults 18 years and older, or 55 million adults, reported symptoms of recent depression in 2022, demonstrating the wide reach of mental health challenges. More
April 2025 Jonathan Purtle, Amanda I Mauri, David Frederick,
In this article, we provide an overview of emergent models for funding crisis systems in the United States and the policy and service contexts related to these models. Our review assesses the status of crisis system financing recommendations proposed by Hogan and Goldman proposed in 2020 and complements prior reports about financing crisis services. More
April 2025 Briana S. Last, Jane M. Zhu,
See all articles in the special issue, Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges Facing the United States: What Can State Policymakers Do? Access… More
April 2025 Jane M. Zhu, Ruth Rowland, Inga Suneson, Deborah J. Cohen, K. John McConnell, Daniel Polsky,
Behavioral health access gaps are well documented in Medicaid, in which managed care now covers most enrollees, and for which there are typically fewer options for going out-of-network for care. Despite the growing role of managed care organizations (MCOs) in financing and delivering behavioral health services, little is known about MCO levers that can improve access to care. More
April 2025 Constanza Hurtado-Acuna, Michael S. Rendall,
Context: The 2015 to 2020 Delaware Contraceptive Access Now (DelCAN) initiative was motivated by Delaware’s having among the highest rates of… More
April 2025 Molly Knowles, Aditi Vasan, Ziwei Pan, Judith A. Long, Shreya Kangovi,
Context: Community health worker (CHW) programs represent a key strategy for addressing social and structural drivers of health and have the… More
April 2025 Luke E. Barry, Sanjay Basu, May Wang, Roch A. Nianogo,
Context: Evidence suggests Medicaid expansion has improved cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes, especially among those of lower socioeconomic… More
April 2025 Brendan Saloner,
This Perspective examines the role of Medicaid in the innovation of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. In 2023, an estimated 49 million Americans met criteria for an SUD and more than 100,000 people died of a drug overdose. Compared with the general population, people with SUD experience worse self-rated health, a higher burden of other chronic diseases, and more hospital care. More
