Podcast

The pandemic called attention to disparities in the American healthcare system. So, what can we do to build a better, more equitable system? How do we design healthcare policy that works in the real world?

Natalie Davis is the Cofounder and CEO of United States of Care, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization committed to ensuring that every American has access to quality, affordable healthcare. Natalie’s career in healthcare began in 2005, and she worked in the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Obama Administration before building USOC in 2018. 

On this episode of HLTH Matters, Natalie joins hosts Dr. Gautam Gulati, Dr. Jordan Shlain and Patricia Bradley to discuss the four goals for the healthcare system USOC identified by talking to people across the country. She describes the concerns Americans have around continuity of health coverage and the cost of care, offering insight on how to build policy solutions that work in the real world. Listen in to understand what Natalie has learned about using language that resonates with people and find out how you can help USOC build a healthcare system that is understandable and easy to navigate.

Topics Covered

• How Natalie’s unique background in art and sociology informs her work in healthcare
• United States of Care’s mission to ensure that everyone has access to quality, affordable healthcare
• The 4 goals for the healthcare system identified through USOC’s interviews with people across the country
• The concerns Americans have around continuity of health coverage through life changes
• How USOC is working to make legislative changes and start a new conversation around what it means to have a healthcare system that works for people
• USOC’s research methodology of asking open-ended questions to identify themes before looking to qualitative and quantitative research
• Why people see it as a unique failure of their own when they can’t navigate the healthcare system
• What USOC has learned about people’s concerns re: prescription drug costs
• How Natalie thinks about using language that resonates with people (e.g.: caregiver)
• Natalie’s insight on building policy and private sector solutions that work in the real world

Connect with Natalie Davis

United States of Care

Connect with Dr. Gautam Gulati and Dr. Jordan Shlain

HLTH

Dr. Gulati on Twitter

Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Dr. Shlain on LinkedIn

Dr. Shlain on Twitter

Resources

Affordable Care Act

HealthCare.gov

Andy Slavitt

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

‘Pain and the Paintbrush: The Life and Art of Frida Kahlo’ in the AMA Journal of Ethics

United States of Care Voices of Real Life Council

Alex Drane

USOC Entrepreneurs Council

USOC Health System Leadership Council

Liz Fowler at CMMI

The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception by Michel Foucault

Liz Gilbert on Your Elusive Creative Genius

Introductory Quote

[7:12] “We are a young organization—nonpartisan, nonprofit—with a mission to ensure everyone has access to quality, affordable healthcare. We believe that policy change is one of the ways that we need to ensure that everybody does have that access to quality care, and so, a lot of our work is at the state and federal level to change policy and legislation to ensure that people can have the access to care that they need.”