Against All Odds: Health Care Reform in the States

Award Year: 2002	Investigator: Virginia Gray, David Lowery	Budget: $274,386	Categories: Health Reform, Interest Groups
Abstract: Over the past several years, the federal government and many states have considered ways to address insurance coverage gaps, prescription drug coverage, and problems with managed care. While most federal reform attempts to date have been thwarted, many more reforms have passed in the states. Virginia Gray, Ph.D. and David Lowery, Ph.D. focus on interest groups in their project, Against All Odds: Health Care Reform in the States. Drs. Gray and Lowery examine why interest groups have been less effective at blocking health care reform at the state level than in Congress, and why many but not all states have been reformers. By looking at interest group structure in each of the 50 states and how they vary, Drs. Gray and Lowery expect to provide insights into the role that interest organizations play in the health policymaking process.