A Health Podyssey

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Farzad Mostashari, founder & CEO of Aledade and the former National Coordinator for Health IT, to the pod to break down insights in the latest MedPAC report, quality measurement reform, and areas of opportunity for value-based care.

Health Affairs is hosting an Insider exclusive event on May 29 focusing on the FDA's first 100 days under the second Trump administration featuring moderator Rachel Sachs alongside panelists Richard Hughes IV and Arti Rai.

Related Links:

• Crossing the Chasm: How to Expand Adoption of Value-Based Care (The New England Journal of Medicine)
• 2025 MedPAC Report

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Senior Editor Akilah Wish to the program to discuss the impacts of preserving the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the effects of physical exercise on health, and how this type of data helps inform policy making.

We are hosting another live podcast recording of A Health Podyssey featuring host Rob Lott and guest Andrew Ryan where they will discuss his paper in the May 2025 edition of Health Affairs and take questions from a live audience. Sign up today.

Health Affairs is hosting an Insider exclusive event on May 29 focusing on the FDA's first 100 days under the second Trump administration featuring moderator Rachel Sachs alongside panelists Richard Hughes IV and Arti Rai.

Related Links:

• CDC's Population Health Office Is Gone (MedPage Today)
• Adult Physical Inactivity Outside of Work (CDC)
• Adult Activity: An Overview (CDC)
• How Exercise Helps You Age Well (NCOA)
• Establishing The President's Make America Healthy Again Commission (The White House)

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Health Affairs' Senior Deputy Editor Rob Lott interviews Mary Kathryn Poole of Harvard University to discuss her recent paper that breaks down and compares economic assistance models on food security and diet quality.

Order the April 2025 issue of Health Affairs.

Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcast for everyone.

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Health Affairs' Senior Deputy Editor Rob Lott interviews Shuyue (Amy) Deng of Tufts University to discuss her recent paper that takes a closer look at the estimated impact of medically tailored meals on health care use and expenditures in the US.

Order the April 2025 issue of Health Affairs.

Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcast for everyone.

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Welcome to the final episode in a special four-part series from Health Affairs on the intersection of food, nutrition, and health. This special series compliments the release of a theme issue on food, nutrition, and health, which is currently available to read.

In this episode, Health Affairs' Jessica Bylander and Ellen Bayer speak with Heather Thomas from the nonprofit A Place to Stand about her Narrative Matters essay from the issue, "A Different Type of Hunger."

The essay explores Thomas' experience fighting to access and maintain food benefits in the US as a mother of six whose family is food insecure.

Order the Food, Nutrition, and Health Issue.

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Health Affairs' Senior Deputy Editor Rob Lott interviews Kurt Hager of the University of Massachusetts to discuss his recent paper that explores how Medicaid nutrition supports were associated with reductions in hospitalizations and emergency department visits in Massachusetts through 2020–23.

Order the April 2025 issue of Health Affairs.

Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcast for everyone.

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

In a special podcast episode, Health Affairs Scholar Associate Editor Loren Adler interviews Elizabeth Popp-Berman about the Health and Political Economy series of papers recently published in Health Affairs Scholar.

The series asks how might the U.S. build a more just and inclusive political economy for health rather than take the status quo for granted.

This paper collection was developed in partnership with the The New School’s Health and Political Economy Project (HPEP), a field catalyst initiative advancing a just and inclusive economy for health, and supported by the Commonwealth Fund.

Read the Collection:

• Health and political economy: building a new common sense in the United States
• Advancing a political economy approach to health using lessons from US antitrust and climate policy
• Reviving public provisioning in US health care
• The fundamental importance of social insurance for health equity
• Centering marginalized care: Home care cooperatives and system change

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Welcome to the third episode in a special four-part series from Health Affairs on the intersection of food, nutrition, and health. This special series compliments the release of a theme issue on food, nutrition, and health to be released this week.

In this episode, Health Affairs' Jessica Bylander and Ellen Bayer discuss the content in the theme issue.

Order the Food, Nutrition, and Health Issue.

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Health Affairs' Senior Deputy Editor Rob Lott interviews Seth Berkowitz of the UNC School of Medicine to discuss his recent paper that explores a new approach to help guide research and policy at the intersection of income, food, nutrition, and health.

Order the April 2025 issue of Health Affairs.

Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcast for everyone.

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.

This episode is brought to you by Semafor Healthcare.

Delivered weekly from David Lim, Semafor Healthcare connects the dots between decisions in government, business, and technology to reveal how they impact the future of healthcare. Each edition will provide the analysis you need to understand and stay ahead of a rapidly changing landscape. Subscribe for free.

Welcome to the second episode in a special four-part series from Health Affairs on the intersection of food, nutrition, and health. This special series compliments the release of a theme issue on food, nutrition, and health to be released April 7, 2025.

In this episode, Health Affairs' Jessica Bylander speaks with Diane Schanzenbach from Northwestern University on the topic of food support programs and their impacts on very young children.

Pre-order the Food, Nutrition, and Health Issue.

Related Links:

• Food Support Programs and Their Impacts On Very Young Children (Health Policy Brief)
• SNAP's Short- and Long-Term Benefits (Northwestern Institute for Policy Research)
• Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net (American Economic Association)

Subscribe to Semafor Healthcare for free.