Many poor Americans get health coverage through Medicaid. Last year, with encouragement from the Trump administration, some states decided to try and change their Medicaid programs. For people to be eligible for health coverage, they needed to show that they were working, or met some other requirement.

On this episode of The Dose, Ben Sommers, a professor of health policy, and economics at the Harvard School of Public Health, talks to host Shanoor Seervai about what happened in Arkansas the first state to implement a “work requirements” program.

The program was intended to promote better health and employment – instead, it led to more than 17,000 people losing health coverage in just three months, and no significant increase in the number of people with jobs.

Listen to learn more, and then subscribe to The Dose wherever you get your podcasts.

Should having a job be a requirement to get health coverage through Medicaid? Tell us what you think – send an email to [email protected].

Most Americans are indignant about high prescription drug prices. But for women living in poverty, life-saving medicines are often completely out of reach. Many poor women skip getting needed care because of the high cost, putting themselves and their families at risk. On the latest episode of The Dose, host Shanoor Seervai sits down with two women who have found innovative ways to tackle this problem. Jessica Grossman, who works for the nonprofit pharmaceutical company Medicines360, sells medicines at a lower price so that all women can get the treatment they need. Reforming the complex U.S. patent system, one of the root causes of high drug prices, is how Priti Krishtel, with the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK), is trying to remove barriers to treatment. Have you or someone you know gone without a medicine because it’s too expensive? Send us an email on [email protected].

When a homeless person gets discharged from hospital, he needs a safe place to recover. When a poor patient faces a high co-pay for a medicine she needs, she is often too embarrassed to tell her doctor – instead, she may not fill the prescription.

Doctors don’t typically try to solve these social problems, but some want to do better at understanding patients’ lived experiences. In the latest episode of The Dose, Ishani Ganguli and Janine Knudsen, both primary care providers at innovative clinics, talk to Shanoor Seervai about how they are trying to treat a patient as a whole person, rather than focusing on a single medical condition. They discuss the successes and challenges of caring for patients in their daily practice in light of the findings of a recent survey of people living with serious illness in the United States.

Several bills introduced in Congress over the past year seek to make health care more accessible to all Americans while also tamping down growing health care costs. In particular, “Medicare for All” proposals have garnered a lot of recent attention.

How would these proposals change the way Americans get health care? On this episode of The Dose, Shanoor Seervai sits down with the Commonwealth Fund’s Sara Collins to break down the different options policymakers are weighing as they try to reform our health care system.

When Americans talk about the Canadian health system, they often bring up wait times. But how long do people really have to wait to get care? This week, we talk to Christopher Hayes, the chief medical information officer at an academic and research health care organization in Canada. In spite of being neighbors, the U.S. and Canada take dramatically different approaches to health care. Join us as we try to untangle what this means for people on both sides of the border when they go to see a doctor.

In Cuba, the neighborhood is not only the center of public life, it is the center of the health care system as well. Primary care is delivered at a consoltorio, a community-based clinic staffed by doctors, nurses, and even statisticians.

When Commonwealth Fund staff traveled to Cuba recently to learn about its primary care system, they discovered that the secret sauce missing from primary care in the United States might just be the role of community.

On this episode of The Dose, we talk about how cultural differences play out in the way Cuba and the U.S. approach the delivery of health care. As a bonus, you’ll also hear a listener’s response to our recent episode on “Medicare for All.”

Most Americans are indignant about high prescription drug prices. But for women living in poverty, life-saving medicines are often completely out of reach. Many poor women skip getting needed care because of the high cost, putting themselves and their families at risk. On the latest episode of The Dose, host Shanoor Seervai sits down with two women who have found innovative ways to tackle this problem. Jessica Grossman, who works for the nonprofit pharmaceutical company Medicines360, sells medicines at a lower price so that all women can get the treatment they need. Reforming the complex U.S. patent system, one of the root causes of high drug prices, is how Priti Krishtel, with the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK), is trying to remove barriers to treatment. Have you or someone you know gone without a medicine because it’s too expensive? Send us an email on [email protected].

Several bills introduced in Congress over the past year seek to make health care more accessible to all Americans while also tamping down growing health care costs. In particular, “Medicare for All” proposals have garnered a lot of recent attention.

How would these proposals change the way Americans get health care? On this episode of The Dose, Shanoor Seervai sits down with the Commonwealth Fund’s Sara Collins to break down the different options policymakers are weighing as they try to reform our health care system.

Truck drivers spend most of their day sitting, which puts them at a high risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, among other health problems. 

But a visionary doctor who cares for union truck drivers in Tulsa, Oaklahoma came up with a plan to integrate exercise into their daily routine. When they stop to check the tires, for example, they can walk around the truck six times instead of just once.

On this episode of The Dose, Shanoor Seervai interviews Mark Blum of America’s Agenda, an alliance of labor unions, employers, health care providers and government leaders, about how innovative unions are changing the way care is delivered.

Put yourself in the shoes of a person diagnosed with diabetes. You have to cope with a new medical reality. To make matters worse, your doctor keeps saying, “stop eating this” and “you can’t eat that.”

What if instead you went to a health center where a team of caregivers – including a nutritionist – asked what your favorite food is, and found a way for you to eat a healthier version?

The team at Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services in North Philadelphia take this approach. In the latest episode of The Dose, Shanoor Seervai speaks to 11th Street’s executive director Roberta Waite, and the Commonwealth Fund’s Sarah Klein, about what makes the health center extraordinary.

From offering a wide range of creative arts therapies, like yoga and dance, to consulting patients about everything (including the color of the walls), 11th Street aims to be a place where people go to be healthy, not just when they’re sick.