Tradeoffs has extensively covered safety-net issues such as Medicaid policy, care for patients with complex needs and behavioral health integration in both our podcast episodes and Research Corner columns written by contributing health policy experts.
Select Podcast Episodes

One Community Health Center’s COVID Recovery
One year ago, a community health center told us how COVID had wreaked havoc on their budget, staff and patients. How are they doing now?

Data and Door Knocking: One City’s Push for Racial Equity in Vaccines
What Chicago can teach the rest of the country about distributing vaccines more equitably.

Meeting the Mental Health Need
Soaring numbers of Americans are feeling anxious, stressed and depressed. Could a reimagined approach to primary care help meet their needs?

Core To Who I Am
We look at the fight to secure health care protections for transgender Americans and the impact they’ve had on helping people get care they need.

Hard to Reach
New data suggest undocumented immigrants aren’t being tested enough for COVID-19. What’s standing in the way, and what’s being done to address it?

The Medicaid Cliff
What happened to Medicaid during the last recession? And what can that teach us going into the next one?

Getting on the Bus
How COVID-19 is threatening one man’s decades-long battle for sobriety and stability.

‘Hot Spotters’ on Trial
What do you do when a process celebrated for keeping the country’s costliest patients out of the hospital doesn’t work as well as we thought?
Select Research Corner Columns
Exploring Inequities in Telemedicine
Rachel Werner on new research looking at which patients have struggled to take advantage of telehealth during the pandemic.
What Medicaid Managed Care Can Tell Us About Controlling Costs
Maria Polyakova explores research on whether low-cost plans lead to less low-value care.
What Role Did Medicaid Play in Previous Pandemics?
Kosali Simon on a paper comparing infant mortality in flu pandemics before and after the introduction of Medicaid.