Why Is Good Healthcare Policy So Hard? | UPenn LDI Director Dr. Rachel Werner

Today's guest, Rachel Werner, is a physician, health economist, and Executive Director of Penn’s Institute of Health Economics whose work explores how healthcare policy can improve care without creating harmful unintended consequences.In this episode, we discuss why public quality report cards can push providers to avoid high-risk patients. We examine why pay-for-performance often improves the metric being rewarded without meaningfully improving patient outcomes. We also explore the debate over nursing home staffing mandates and the evidence that stronger staffing requirements could save thousands of lives each year. Finally, we discuss why rigorous research does not always translate into policy, and what it takes to build a more evidence-informed healthcare system.