Data analysis and policy design—not good intentions—will fix healthcare post COVID

PolicyCast

As healthcare policy navigates what is widely seen as a historic inflection point, Harvard Kennedy School professors Amitabh Chandra and Soroush Saghafian say policymakers need to pursue change with care, deeply analyzing the weaknesses the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and using that data to design intelligent policy that can create truly transformational change. COVID stretched the U.S. health care system and health care systems across the world to the breaking point and beyond, buy if there’s a silver lining, it may be that there is now the urgency and will among politicians and policymakers to pursue meaningful changes that could result in improved access to healthcare services that are both more affordable and higher quality. But Saghafian and Chandra say quick-fix policy changes—even those that are well-intentioned—may be destined to fail, including the health care provisions in the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which were hailed as a breakthrough if for nothing else other than finally breaking the pharmaceutical industry’s stranglehold on any attempt to control prescription drug prices. Professor Chandra is the director of Health Policy Research at the Kennedy School, and his research focuses on innovation and pricing in the biopharmaceutical industry and value and racial disparities in health care delivery. Professor Saghafian is the founder of the Public Impact Analytics Science Lab at Harvard and his work combines big data analytics, health policy, and decision science to discover new insights and provide new solutions to various existing problems. They’re here to talk through this important historic moment in healthcare policy, both in terms of challenges and opportunities.