Featuring Alexander Everhart, CAHSPER core faculty
Author: Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research
As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts (Links to an external site)
Featuring Alexander Everhart, CAHSPER core faculty
ACA Signups Drop over 800,000 in 2026, as consumers face increase in premiums (Links to an external site)
Nationwide 22.6 million have signed up for the ACA marketplace by January 12, representing a 3.5% drop in enrollment. In Missouri, signups have dropped 11.3%. Recipients are facing significant increases in marketplace premiums because the enhanced premium tax credits were not renewed by Congress at the end of 2025.
Talking Elections on Election Day: Reflections on Presenting at APHA 2025
Victoria Anders, MPH/MSP, a research assistant with core faculty member Caitlin McMurtry, presented her research at the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
Missouri saw a marked increase in ACA Marketplace enrollment and decrease in Medicaid enrollment in 2023-2025
Our center released a policy brief and dashboards showing changes in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace enrollment in Missouri in 2023-2025. This analysis provides context as we approach Open Enrollment and signals that the expected significant increases in net premiums (after subsidies) may have major effects on health insurance affordability and uptake.
WashU Expert: To address gun violence, focus on fear and trust (Links to an external site)
When it comes to curbing gun violence in America, the field of public health should consider focusing less on the guns themselves and more on a rising sense of distrust that makes people reach for guns in the first place, says CAHSPER core faculty member Caitlin McMurtry.
Transforming Healthcare in Missouri, Part X: Community-Based Models and Policies for Children’s Behavioral Health
On October 16, 2025, we hosted our tenth annual Transforming Healthcare in Missouri event in our state capital, Jefferson City. About 50 stakeholders from across the state came together to discuss the current landscape for children’s behavioral health and envision a system that emphasizes upstream prevention and early intervention across the childhood life course with a foundation in community-based care.
Hospital to Housing program linked to considerable decrease in health care utilization and costs
Our center worked with the team behind the Hospital to Housing (H2H) program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital to produce an analysis of the program’s early impact.
An invaluable experience sharing my research beyond the WashU community
Ri’enna Boyd, MPH, 3rd Year PhD Student at the WashU School of Public Health, presented her research at the American Political Science Association (APSA) conference in Vancouver, BC.
Caitlin McMurtry receives a seed grant to study the structural origins of vaccine hesitancy
The study aims to address the question: Do individuals living in communities with greater rates of criminal legal system contact show lower levels of trust in government and, by extension, lower rates of vaccine uptake?
Uncovering key differences in health insurance coverage across rural and urban areas in the U.S.
A new policy brief outlines the health insurance status of people in the U.S., by residence (rural and urban) in 2023, with additional breakdowns by age groups. In 2023, insurance coverage rate patterns differed for those living in rural areas compared to those living in urban areas in some systematic and important ways.
MO Medicaid Expansion four years later: reflections on the impact (Links to an external site)
Medicaid expansion went into effect July 2021, first enrolled recipients identified in October 2021. What do we know about its impacts?
New dashboards show payor mix in Missouri hospitals, 2016-2024
The interactive dashboards allow users to view and compare the payor mix (i.e., the share of reimbursement from private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) Missouri hospitals experienced for emergency department and inpatient services from 2016 to 2024.
Missouri Medicaid Update: State Completes Year-Long Renewal Process (Links to an external site)
States are required to complete annual renewals to confirm recipients are still eligible. In Missouri, only 54% of recipients renewed their eligibility for Medicaid through this process, a much lower proportion compared to Medicaid recipients across the country (74%). Most (92%) of the 28% of recipients who were disenrolled lost coverage for “procedural reasons.”
CAHSPER welcomes Osvaldo Laurido‑Soto and Kevin Xu as core faculty
We are proud to welcome outstanding additions to our core faculty: Osvaldo J. Laurido-Soto, MD and Kevin Y. Xu, MD, MPH. Their expertise strengthens our interdisciplinary network and enhances our center’s capacity to carry out its mission of improving health outcomes by conducting and disseminating high-quality, rigorous health services and policy research.
Lessons for rolling out the One Big Bill: Can states manage Medicaid changes? (Links to an external site)
As states prepare to manage much work to implement the aspects of the One Big Bill (H.R.1), lessons can be learned from states’ inability to manage the work they already are doing.
Missouri Medicaid expansion and unwinding link to changes in hospital encounters and a drop in uncompensated care
Our Medicaid Policy Analysis Lab’s latest policy brief reviews changes in hospital encounters over time in Missouri, before and after the start of Medicaid expansion, concentrating on emergency department encounters and inpatient encounters and the “payer mix” hospitals received from those visits (e.g., private, Medicare, Medicaid, and uncompensated).
What experts think of the $50 billion rural health fund in Trump’s big bill (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
New insurer Medica aims to shake up the St. Louis health landscape (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
Federal budget megabill would shift billions in cost to Missouri taxpayers (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
WashU Public Health Ideas with Timothy McBride (Links to an external site)
As part of Public Health Ideas, a platform for the dean of WashU School of Public Health to share and discuss work in public health, Dean Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, talks with CAHSPER co-Director Timothy McBride, PhD, MS. They discussed the future of Medicaid funding and potential impacts of health care policy.
Both US senators for Missouri voted to pass One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
Center faculty head to Nashville to present their research at national health economics conference
Several members of the Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research team and core faculty traveled to Nashville, TN last week for the 14th annual conference of the American Society of Health Economists to share insights, foster collaborations, and discuss the latest advancements in health economics research with other researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.
To keep Medicaid, a mom caring for her disabled adult son may soon need to prove she works (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
Examining the impact of high hospital fixed-cost ratios on rural populations
In a new policy brief, Abigail R. Barker, PhD describes characteristics of rural hospitals with high fixed-to-total-cost ratios – a characteristic that has implications for financial stability under different payment models.
May 2025 Update: Missouri Medicaid enrollment stable; pending applications drop (Links to an external site)
Total net enrollment of Missouri’s Medicaid program has remained relatively stable in the last ten months. Overall, MOHealthNET enrollment was 1,245,906 in May 2025, and has remained relatively stable at between 1.24 million to 1.27 million since June 2024 when the unwinding of the Public Health Emergency (PHE) ended.
Missouri health providers and advocates raise alarms ahead of vote on ‘big, beautiful’ bill (Links to an external site)
Featuring Karen Joynt Maddox, CAHSPER co-director
Brown School researchers study AI’s role in pediatric cancer care (Links to an external site)
Cindy Kang, a PhD student in public health sciences at the Brown School, has received a St. Baldrick’s Foundation Summer Fellows grant to study how artificial intelligence (AI) can improve outcomes for children with cancer. This summer, Kang is working under the mentorship of Brown School Professor and CAHSPER Core Faculty Member Kim Johnson to study how AI can help predict the risk of metastasis at the time of a child’s initial cancer diagnosis.
St. Luke’s to close Des Peres hospital (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
The effects of potential federal Medicaid cuts on rural Missouri health care (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
How the effects of Medicaid cuts in Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ could impact Missourians (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
St. Louis Doctor’s Pediatric Cancer Research Combines AI and Social Factors (Links to an external site)
Featuring Kim Johnson, CAHSPER core faculty
Shining a light on psychiatric hospital safety (Links to an external site)
Morgan Shields, an assistant professor at WashU School of Public Health and a CAHSPER core faculty member, has researched hidden harms in psychiatric settings and advocates for better federal monitoring of such institutions. Her research was recently cited in a federal push for transparency.
CAHSPER Core Faculty Present at AcademyHealth’s 2025 Annual Research Meeting
CAHSPER Co-Director Timothy McBride, PhD, MS and several of our core faculty joined thousands of experts at the intersection of health, health care, and policy to share important research findings on how the health system works, its costs, and how it can and should be transformed.
Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” continues GOP efforts to roll back Obamacare (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
Hawley stakes ground as chief GOP defender of Medicaid (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
Should We Be Worried About Private Equity Moving Into Psychiatry? (Links to an external site)
Featuring Morgan Shields, CAHSPER core faculty
Private equity ownership tied to lower psychiatric hospital staffing, higher quality performance (Links to an external site)
As of 2021, 14% of U.S. psychiatric hospitals were owned by private equity firms, with ownership concentrated in southern states, according to a study by CAHSPER core faculty member Morgan Shields.
Trump and GOP’s tax bill would force cuts to Medicare, CBO says (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
New Medicaid policy lab brings data to the debate (Links to an external site)
As Congress weighs $715 billion in Medicaid cuts, WashU’s new Medicaid Policy Analysis Lab offers timely briefs showing how policy changes impact real people — especially in Missouri.
Medical device manufacturers often delay reporting adverse safety events, study says (Links to an external site)
Featuring Alexander Everhart, CAHSPER core faculty
Pronounced rural-urban gaps remain in health insurance coverage in Missouri
The Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research has released a new policy brief that explores health insurance coverage for persons living in rural and urban areas in Missouri, with comparisons to national averages during the 2021 to 2023 period after Medicaid expansion was implemented.
As Republicans in Congress eye sweeping Medicaid cuts, Missouri offers a preview (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
Health Data Bootcamp 2025: Consolidation and corporatization in the U.S. healthcare system
Should medicine be a business like any other? That was the question that Dhruv Khullar, MD, MPP posed in the beginning of his keynote during the second annual Health Data Bootcamp hosted by the Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research on April 23, 2025.
Center’s latest policy brief on changes in Missouri Medicaid enrollment outline implications for the state budget
The policy brief provides evidence that is consistent with the theory that some new applicants who might have otherwise sought coverage as permanently and totally disabled (PTD) individuals are applying instead under the expansion category (AEG) that was created in 2021 because it is an easier and quicker path to obtaining coverage.
Unknown future of federal Medicaid funding puts Missouri in a bind (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
Center issues policy brief on work status among Missouri Medicaid recipients
The Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research has released a new policy brief that describes the characteristics of Medicaid recipients, including work status, in Missouri and the U.S – important context for the current policy debate about potential work requirements for Medicaid recipients.
States that enshrined Medicaid expansion in their constitutions could be in a bind (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director
WashU Public Health Ideas with Morgan Shields (Links to an external site)
As part of Public Health Ideas, a platform for the dean of WashU School of Public Health to share and discuss researchers’ work, Dean Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, talks with CAHSPER core faculty member Morgan Shields, PhD. They discussed two papers Shields co-authored: “Institutional Betrayal in Inpatient Psychiatry: Effects on Trust and Engagement With Care,” and “Patient-centered inpatient psychiatry is associated with outcomes, ownership, and national quality measures.”
Anatomy of a fallout between MU Health Care and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (Links to an external site)
Featuring Timothy McBride, CAHSPER co-director