Building the evidence to shape health policies under Obamacare

Health economist Katherine Baicker of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health was interviewed on the July 13 episode of Politico’s Pulse Check podcast about her pioneering work with the Oregon health insurance experiment, what she thinks of Obamacare’s cost controls, and how her research helps inform health policies.

Baicker, C. Boyden Gray Professor of Health Economics and acting chair of the School’s Department of Health Policy and Management, also shared what her priorities would be if she had been named health care czar. “I would have expanded subsidies for people to guarantee affordability of at least a basic insurance package,” she said, adding that she would also like to see “competition in designing innovative insurance and innovative care.”

Describing Baicker’s influence as a health policy researcher, podcast host Dan Diamond noted that Baicker was one of the researchers most-cited in a paper on health care reform by President Barack Obama published July 11, 2016 in JAMA—the first paper published by a sitting president in a peer-reviewed journal. She and Benjamin Sommers, assistant professor of health policy and economics, were each cited three times for papers on which they were authors.

Listen to Politico podcast: Kate Baicker on busting Obamacare myths