A Critical Resource for States
This book is a crucial resource for state legislators who wish to improve both their constituents’ well-being and their state’s financial health. The reforms included in this book are commonsense, innovative solutions to achieve those goals. The book’s authors share their own experiences to help readers anticipate and counter opposition with effective responses and evidence, such as statistics and examples of other states’ successes. States that implement these practical solutions may help not only their own constituents but also citizens nationwide by inspiring reforms in other states and at the federal level. It is urgent that state leaders not wait for solutions from Washington and instead use the power they have to improve their health sector
8 Ways States Can Create a Better Health System
Check out these conversations with leading policy experts to learn about the reforms.
Take Control
States Can Provide Remedies
Don’t Wait for Washington is a crucial resource for state legislators who wish to improve both their constituents’ well-being and their state’s financial health.
Demonstrate Leadership
Reform the State Employee Health Plan
Brian Blase, PhD, discusses how states can improve their health care sectors by using their leverage as a large, and often the largest, employer in the state.
Manage Effectively
Make Medicaid More Accountable
Jonathan Ingram discusses problems with Medicaid—the largest state budget item—and provides recommendations for how states can better run their programs.
Maximize Choice
Open Up Coverage Options
Charles Miller shows how the ACA’s insurance regulation removed affordable and flexible options from millions of Americans—particularly those who earn middle income or higher.
Welcome Competition
Scale Back Certificate of Needs Laws
Matt Mitchell documents how restrictive certificate-of-need laws require health care providers to obtain government permission to increase the availability of health care services.
Unshackle Providers
Don’t Waste Their Training
Robert Graboyes and Darcy Nikol Bryan, MD, discuss how medical professionals can practice at the top of their license and non-MDs without mandatory collaborative practice agreements.
Unleash Technology
Maximize Telehealth’s Potential
Naomi Lopez considers why states should make permanent many of the telehealth reforms they enacted to ease patients’ access to their providers during the COVID pandemic.
Empower Patients
Let Them Own and Control Their Prescriptions
Jeffrey Singer, MD, considers what states should do to conform to a new federal rule that permits patients to access and share their electronic health records via smartphone apps.
Implement Transparency
Release Data to Improve Decision-Making
Heidi Overton, MD, recommends that states make Medicaid claims data public to increase patient knowledge and improve the appropriateness of medical care.
Don't Wait for Washington
Paragon’s President Brian Blase, PhD, and eight other policy experts offer a field guide for state policymakers and their staff to solve many of our major health care challenges at the local level.
Download or order our book or watch a series of interviews to get started.