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Healthcare Policy

Negotiating a truce in the war on drugs
Participants at the Addicted to the War on Drugs Symposium

Ethan Nadelman, founder and former executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Penn political science professor Marie Gottschalk, Evan Anderson, a senior lecturer in the School of Nursing, and Roseanne Scotti, the New Jersey director of the Drug Policy Alliance, discussed their policy ideas. (Photo: Gwyneth K. Shaw)

Negotiating a truce in the war on drugs

A Penn Law symposium brought together experts from the legal, law enforcement, social work, and policy camps to discuss how to refocus the decades-long fight to be less punitive and more protective.

Gwyneth K. Shaw

How do consumers respond to surprise medical bills?
person wearing glasses holding a piece of paper and frowning

How do consumers respond to surprise medical bills?

New research examines how consumers proceed with choosing medical care after receiving a “surprise bill” from an out-of-network expense.

Penn Today Staff

Big Pharma lines pockets of groups opposing Medicare changes

Big Pharma lines pockets of groups opposing Medicare changes

“I think we have a lot of evidence from research on financial conflicts of interest in other areas of health care to know that the influence often is unconscious to the people who are actually experiencing it,” said Matthew McCoy of the Perelman School of Medicine, commenting on the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on health care policies.

Eleventh state enacts law to protect victims of child sex abuse
Woman in a red jacket standing at a podium with two microphones.

Marci Hamilton, the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program professor of practice, speaking on behalf of the Child Victims Act. (Photo: Courtesy of Marci Hamilton)

Eleventh state enacts law to protect victims of child sex abuse

Marci Hamilton, a professor of practice and founder and CEO of the nonprofit think tank CHILD USA, helped draft the original New York legislation more than 15 years ago and has been working ever since to push it through.

Michele W. Berger

Embracing a community’s practice to promote the measles vaccine
A girl in a blue fleece standing in front of a wall of black and white posters in Hebrew. Boxes of children's toys are in front of the wall.

Naomi Shapiro, a senior in Penn Nursing, in front of a wall of pashkevilim. These posters often contain language that can seem harsh or extreme to someone not accustomed to their tone. But within the community, they are well-received and taken seriously.

Embracing a community’s practice to promote the measles vaccine

Mimicking a news-sharing custom common among ultraorthodox Jewish communities, two Penn Nursing students created and placed posters around a Jerusalem neighborhood, employing a mystical technique that assigns a numerical value to each Hebrew letter.

Michele W. Berger

Pennsylvania Supreme Court relents for now on medical malpractice changes

Pennsylvania Supreme Court relents for now on medical malpractice changes

Responding to threats by a large health network outside Philadelphia to end cross-county partnerships if venue restraints on medical malpractice lawsuits were lifted, Hanming Fang of the School of Arts and Sciences and the Leonard Davis Institute said changing the venue rule would allow lawyers to file lawsuits in Philadelphia regardless of affiliations with the city’s health systems. “I don’t see that logic,” said Fang.

Treating opioid addicts is expensive. States want drug makers to fund it

Treating opioid addicts is expensive. States want drug makers to fund it

Daniel Polsky of the Perelman School of Medicine weighed in on the high cost of treatments for opioid addiction. “It’s in insurers’ interest to cover addiction medications, and it’s in the patients’ interest too,” Polsky said. “It’s the cheapest and most effective treatment available.”

Seeing health care disparities firsthand in Chile
A group of college students sitting on a street between colorful buildings.

On a Nursing Study Abroad winter break trip, a group of students in the course Health and the Health Care System in Chile got to see health care disparities in the South American country firsthand. Senior Elisheva Blas (seated farthest to the right) discusses the experience visiting run-down facilities with long wait times used by people on public insurance, and five-star spaces and services for those on private insurance.

Seeing health care disparities firsthand in Chile

A senior in the course Health and the Health Care System in Chile reflects on lessons from a 10-day Nursing Study Abroad winter break trip, which offered a holistic view of the South American country’s health system.

Michele W. Berger