For decades now, I've been asking why healthcare costs so much in our state and wondering who is paying attention to that dynamic. Several years ago, Lucy and I had a deeper conversation about this. We’ve explored the regulatory environment, but it doesn’t really answer some fundamental questions – like why we pay for hospital and specialty care, but not for primary care in the same way other states do. For small companies, premiums keep going up and there’s often not even a choice for a low deductible plan. Ultimately, the burden of the cost of care ends up on us as individuals. The dollars we spend in healthcare are dollars that could be used to improve health. Other states that closely monitor their healthcare system’s cost information have a better ability to balance what gets paid for.

People need access to healthcare. We need options, and those options need to be cost effective. What’s the solution? Ten years ago, conversations about how and why to reduce costs and improve quality were everywhere, but have since been quiet. Why aren’t we making more progress? Every time we dig deeper, we find a messy tangle of rules and obstacles both seen and unseen. That’s why we began the reBuild initiative, bringing together insurance professionals, health policy wonks, legal experts, patient advocates, providers, and associations. Participants wear multiple hats, sharing current and past experience. The key is setting aside our vested interests in order to have an honest conversation about our healthcare system.

The Endowment for Health awarded more than $3.4 million in grants since the start of the pandemic, supporting a wide array of projects focused on communities and organizations working to alleviate the health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19.

“The Endowment’s resources have been focused in large part toward stabilization of the health care workforce, emergency operating support for community-serving organizations, and expanded advocacy to address the disparities laid bare by the pandemic,” said Endowment for Health President Dr. Yvonne Goldsberry. Since the start of the Pandemic, the Endowment awarded $3,461,627 representing 87 grants to 47 organizations with an average award size of $40,000.