Tracee Saunders
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traceesaunders.bsky.social
Tracee Saunders
@traceesaunders.bsky.social
1.1K followers 72 following 0 posts
Assistant Professor, Penn State Political Science | Poli Sci PhD | MS Health Informatics | health policy, bureaucracy, social inequality

traceesaunders.com
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Reposted by Tracee Saunders
oberlanderunc.bsky.social
Great upcoming (and all too timely, given current events) panel on Medicaid with authors from @jhppl.bsky.social special issue
June 3, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
adrianna.bsky.social
This paper links Census records of *37.5 million* nonelderly adults to administrative records on Medicaid enrollment and death dates.

Hugely impressive data feat to offer new and robust evidence on Medicaid saving lives.
wschpero.bsky.social William Schpero @wschpero.bsky.social · May 5
Important, timely new findings on the effects of Medicaid expansion under the ACA from Wyse and Meyer (Dartmouth):

1. *Lives saved*: 21% reduction in the mortality hazard of new enrollees.

2. *Cost-effective*: $179,000 per life-year saved.

Read more: www.nber.org/papers/w33719
May 5, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
edwincpark.bsky.social
How #Medicaid supports state economies, employment and state health workforces via @commonwealthfund.org: www.commonwealthfund.org/publications...
How Does Medicaid Benefit States?
Medicaid provides critical health care to Americans with low income and generates a powerful return on investment for all states.
www.commonwealthfund.org
May 5, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
anneapplebaum.bsky.social
If the IRS deprives Harvard of its tax-exempt status, that's very bad for Harvard but it's also a catastrophe for the IRS. Instead of a neutral agency that enforces tax law, it will become a tool of partisan warfare. It may never recover.
April 17, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
kff.org
As Congress considers changes to Medicaid as part of the budget debate, our latest poll finds relatively few adults say they want to see a reduction in Medicaid spending, with larger shares saying they want spending to stay about the same or increase. on.kff.org/43uvXb5
Bar chart from KFF Health Tracking Poll showing various groups' opinions on whether Congress should increase, maintain, or decrease Medicaid spending. Breakdown includes totals and party affiliations: Total population, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, total rural voters, and rural Independents. Majority favors increasing or maintaining spending, with relatively lower support for cuts.
March 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
ebharrington.bsky.social
Evers, Pritzker, Walz and Whitmer: Midwestern governors reminding us what government *can* be.
February 25, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
scholars.org
“It’s a wonderful honor to begin my career as a researcher with the support of the Scholars Strategy Network,” said @traceesaunders.bsky.social on joining the Health Equity Scholars Program (HESP). Learn about her research findings on Medicaid enrollment barriers & HESP’s impact ⤵️
Saunders named as 2024-25 cohort member of the Health Equity Scholars Program | Penn State University
Tracee Saunders, assistant professor of political science and Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member, was announced in fall 2024 as a member of the 2024-25 cohort of the Scholars…
buff.ly
February 18, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
ldubay.bsky.social
E&C committee was asked to cut $880 billion to make way for tax cuts. Latest paper from my @urbaninstitute.bsky.social colleagues on what would happen to insurance coverage if the 90 percent FMAP for the Medicaid expansion was eliminated. www.urban.org/research/pub...
Reducing Federal Support for Medicaid Expansion Would Shift Costs to States and Likely Result in Coverage Losses
Leadership in the House of Representatives has proposed substantial federal funding cuts to the Medicaid program over the next 10 years. This report focuses on the proposal to reduce the 90 percent fe...
www.urban.org
February 25, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
edwincpark.bsky.social
New Urban Institute report on impact of cutting federal $ for #Medicaid expansion. If in place in 2026, states must increase their spending by $44b in that year (+26%) or drop expansion with 16m losing coverage. 3.4m would lose coverage right away due to trigger laws: www.urban.org/research/pub...
February 25, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
arrianna-planey.bsky.social
Did I mention that, between 1990-2020, rural hospital closures increasingly occurred in counties with high levels of income inequality as well? www.shepscenter.unc.edu/product/rura...
Since 1990, Rural Hospital Closures Have Increasingly Occurred in Counties that Are More Urbanized, Diverse, and Economically Unequal - Sheps Center
The NC Rural Health Research Program tracks and studies rural hospital closures. Our most recent brief, , describes the socio‐economic, demographic, and health system characteristics for rural countie...
www.shepscenter.unc.edu
February 25, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Very nice forthcoming APSR from Cox, Epp, and @mshepruralpolitics.bsky.social. Rural hospital closures reduced turnout nearby.

We want people who experience social or economic hardship to speak up politically--but hardship reduces your voice.

gated: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
We investigate how hardships affect rural politics, considering the case of hospital closures. In the last two decades, more than two hundred rural hospitals have closed their doors or drastically reduced their services. Drawing from resource models of voting, our hypothesis is that personal- and community-level deprivations brought about by hospital closures should reduce election turnout. Empirical tests pair geographic information on the location of open and closed hospitals with data from state voter files to create a panel of over 10 million rural residents for the 2016, 2018, and 2020 national elections. Results show that individuals whose nearest hospital closed prior to the proximate election were less likely to vote than their unaffected counterparts. These effects are strongest for older and lower-income residents, but they decay over time so that voting likelihood resembles a pre-closure baseline within 12 months.
February 25, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
philiprocco.bsky.social
Excellent piece here by @pmheideman.bsky.social: jacobin.com/2025/02/trum...
A Key Opportunity to Check Trump: Stopping Medicaid Cuts
Defeating the GOP’s proposed Medicaid cuts, which will then fund huge tax cuts for the rich, is an urgent priority. It’s a chance to reestablish the popularity of the welfare state in American politic...
jacobin.com
February 10, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
pamherd.bsky.social
Samuel Hammond argues that NSF should use AI to pick which proposals are funded—the NSF would only need 10% of its staff. This is not an Onion article.
February 10, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
donmoyn.bsky.social
New from me @thebulwark.bsky.social
I explain why Trump's attack on university indirect rates is such a big deal, and how it represents one more example of an indifference to the rule of law.
The "laws are just vibes" party is doing irreparable damage to America.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Under Trump, Laws Are Just Vibes
The administration’s dangerous attack on scientific funding is part of a pattern of illegality and abuse.
substack.com
February 10, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
jcrowley.bsky.social
This is why crisis informatics, data science, GIS, and complex systems modeling is at risk: we create inconvenient truths for propagandists.
jessicacalarco.com Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · Feb 8
This is why they're attacking science and education: if you can only win with disinformation, data become a threat.
Tweet from Scott Jennings, saying "um, yes, that's really a problem," with a quoted image saying "The problem with left-leaning media is they're intrinsically more strict with their propaganda to only using verifiable sources so it's really hard to poke holes in their ideology and arguments in comparison to a lot of low quality right-wing content. That makes attacking their points with fact checkers not very effective unless the fact checkers use misinformation tactics as well. In essence, people on the right have to work harder and more creatively to push their agendas as statistics and studies frustratingly aren't usually on our side."
February 9, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
mirandayaver.bsky.social
I just wrote the lecture slides for Tuesday's Administrative Burden & Inequality in U.S. Health Care class on the effect of the Arkansas Medicaid work requirement, and reading about the insane complexity of the reporting process makes me so insanely livid that they're coming back to screw people.
February 8, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
ezralevin.bsky.social
When I was a Hill staffer in 2009, a Dem trifecta was trying to pass universal healthcare. In response, Senate GOP released a memo detailing all of the tactics they in the minority could use to delay the effort as much as possible. I'm recirculating that 2009 GOP memo here. Take inspiration from it.
February 2, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
pamherd.bsky.social
Fantastic bit of good news! Looks like NSF responded to the court order and funded grantees will be able to access already dedicated funds.
February 2, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
exiledsocscientist.bsky.social
Quick reminder: a bureaucrat's likelihood to have the courage to disobey an unlawful or unconstitutional order is directly related to their expectation of being supported and protected.

Democrats should be promising to support federal workers who report illegal orders or refuse to comply with them.
February 1, 2025 at 12:37 AM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
donmoyn.bsky.social
The executive branch does not have the legal right to cancel appropriated spending or eliminate agencies created by Congress.
Trump and Musk are doing both. Entirely lawless and unconstitutional.
The world's largest provider of food assistance shut down.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Musk tweet boasting of "feeding USAID into the chipper" “I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said. “And I actually checked with him a few times [and] said ‘are you sure?’” The answer was yes, he said. “And so we’re shutting it down,” Musk said. USAID staffers were told that the agency’s headquarters in Washington will be closed Monday amid the turmoil. In an email to staff early Monday, the agency’s leadership said: “Agency personnel normally assigned to work at USAID headquarters will work remotely … with the exception of personnel with essential on-site and building maintenance functions individually contacted by senior leadership.”
February 3, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
donmoyn.bsky.social
I'm just a simple country public administration professor so maybe smarter people than me can explain if these options can't work and if others are better, but there is no strategy that involves waiting for something bigger than right now.
February 3, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
donmoyn.bsky.social
Just spitballing, but things that could happen today:
*Court injunction protecting USAID
*Dems demand hearings on Musk's role
*Someone introduce articles of impeachment
*Dem officeholders go to USAID offices with USAID workers
*Refuse to conduct any more Senate confirmations until this is resolved
February 3, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
asacarny.bsky.social
I’m feeling sick. BRFSS is one of the most basic public health survey datasets. There is no conceivable reason to take it down.
January 31, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
johnmullahy.bsky.social
BRFSS walks the plank

www.cdc.gov/brfss/data_d...
www.cdc.gov/brfss/annual...
January 31, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Reposted by Tracee Saunders
donmoyn.bsky.social
I will be speaking at this @scholars.org event on Feb 3. Join us!
scholars.my.salesforce-sites.com/event/home/s...
January 29, 2025 at 12:38 AM