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.
The Milbank Memorial Fund has published The Milbank Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal of population health and health policy since 1923. The Fund also publishes reports, issue briefs (shorter papers), and case studies. It has commissioned and published reports since early in the last century. From 1999 to 2013, the Fund co-published with the University of California Press a series of books titled California/Milbank Books on Health and the Public. If you would like to suggest a publication idea within our key areas of state health leadership, primary care, or sustainable health care costs, please email Communications Director Christine Haran at charan@milbank.org.
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Fact Sheet
April 2025 Sofia Espinosa, Morgan McDonald,
The Milbank State Leadership Network hosted a virtual session for state legislators and legislative staff to hear directly from state and local public health officials on the impact of funding and federal program staffing cuts to core services. More
Issue Brief
March 2025 Rebecca S. Etz, Kevin Grumbach, Larry A. Green, Kurt C. Stange,
Primary care clinicians are a bellwether for the state of health care and health in the United States. With the Trump Administration moving at… More
March 2025 Mary Louise Gilburg, Sofia Espinosa, Morgan McDonald,
The Milbank State Leadership Network hosted experts from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) to discuss state legislative approaches to Medicaid and behavioral health policy during the 2025 state legislative season. The conversation explored bipartisan approaches to strengthen coverage, address rising costs amid severe budget constraints, and, improve access to substance use disorder treatment and suicide prevention. More
Report
March 2025 Sofia Espinosa, Mary Louise Gilburg, Morgan McDonald,
In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Milbank Memorial Fund convened the second of two virtual meetings in support of the multi-state Secretary’s Postpartum Maternal Health Collaborative. More
March 2025 Vida Foubister,
This series of profiles highlights five states that are in different stages of enacting and implementing primary care spending targets, including early planning and coalition building; active efforts to engage state policymakers; and implementation or revision of an enacted state policy. 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 Yalda Jabbarpour, Anuradha Jetty, Hoon Byun, Anam Siddiqi, Jeongyoung Park,
This 2025 Primary Care Scorecard spotlights the downward cycle of financing for primary care, describing how persistent challenges in primary care arise from insufficient investment (or in the case of training, misplaced investment) and a fee-for-service (FFS) payment model that rewards volume rather than continuous, whole-person care. This report highlights how these systemic financial issues not only undermine the effectiveness of primary care delivery but, more importantly, jeopardize the overall health of our communities in the following ways. 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
