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2. Capitalizing on the Fund's Comparative Advantages
The Fund has honed its niche and assembled a set of resources and capacities that give it an advantage in certain types of work.
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Sponsor work that will inform key health care policy discussions and spark debates on existing or emerging issues. Producing information on important policy issues can be a strong suit for a mid-sized foundation like the Fund. The Fund has built a strong staff and cultivated relationships with key grantees, who together bring the requisite expertise, experience, and intellectual creativity to the challenge. Work by the Fund and its grantees contributed to the debate leading up to the 2003 enactment of the Medicare prescription drug benefit; discussion of health plans during the 2004 presidential campaign; and deliberations on high-deductible health plans. Fund-sponsored work also played a role in making Medicare's two-year waiting period for the disabled a front-burner issue. |
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Analyze and report on policy options. The Fund's Task Force on the Future of Health Insurance was particularly effective in analyzing states' options for improving health insurance coverage and assessing national options for expansion. |
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Assess the impact of public program changes or assist their implementation. The Fund played a substantial role in tracking the implementation of Medicaid managed care in the late 1990s, and subsequently in assessing the progress and impact of Medicare+Choice/Medicare Advantage. The foundation is now sponsoring work to assess the implementation of the new Medicare drug benefit, with particular attention to the needs of low-income beneficiaries. |
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Use surveys to develop timely information and build a reputation as an information resource. Surveys have been very useful to the Fund in identifying emerging issues (such as the growth of consumer debt associated with inadequate health insurance, or patients' problems communicating with their doctors), producing comparative performance data on the health care systems of the U.S. and other industrialized countries, and shaping the foundations' own work. Focus groups have been useful as well for defining problems, developing survey instruments, and giving a human face to survey findings. |
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