Blog

By any measure, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – especially as implemented in California – met or exceeded expectations on expanding coverage to tens of millions of Americans. Paired with recent state budgetary actions by Gov. Gavin Newsom opening...

A shortage of vaccines. Confusing messages about who is at risk. Challenges accessing diagnostic testing and appropriate treatments. The public health response to monkeypox looks too much like our nation’s incomplete and inequitable response to...

The nation’s progress toward value-based care is impeded by the siloed nature of the healthcare industry. Joe Castiglione, principal program manager of Industry Initiatives at Blue Shield of California, shares how Blue Shield implemented an industry...

Every person deserves access to the medications they need at a price they can afford. In August, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, landmark legislation that starts to fix the broken market for prescription drugs. This desperately needed reform...

Fragmentation in health care contributes to multiple problems, including gaps in patient care, inefficiencies in clinical care and operations, poor flow of data, and misaligned incentives. In this panel presentation, hear how Blue Shield of California and CareOregon are building bridges and breaking down barriers to a create a more cohesive health care system and looking at the entire health care ecosystem as a whole.

A few years ago, while working with some 30 healthcare startups as a director at Kaiser Permanente's venture-capital fund, Shruti Kothari found that policy could make or break a company's ability to bring...

All the data we have shows that primary care is the foundation for a high functioning health care system. It is a “common good,” as advocated by the National Academies for Science, Engineering and Medicine, and the lack of equitable access to primary...

Health care can be overwhelmingly complex, but when it comes to addressing the wide disparities in health access and outcomes exposed by COVID-19, getting started can be as simple as showing each person that they matter. That’s the important lesson we...

In late March, I was honored to speak at the 2022 Northern California State of Reform Health Policy Conference in Sacramento, on their “Innovations in Care Collaboration” panel. I was joined by my fellow panelists Crystal Eubanks of the California...