Medicaid and the Future of Health Care in the USA: Interview with Matt Salo

Episode 88: Today's episode is about Medicaid, the most important program that most Americans know nothing about. I spoke with Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. We talked about his role in NAMD and the function of the organization. We spoke at length about the ethical and economic dilemma that has faced Medicaid lately - the development of a cure for Hepatitis C (Sovaldi). As Mr. Salo explained in this New York Times piece from August 2, 2014, Medicaid directors estimated that covering this cure for Hepatitis C could drive up the cost of health care by 10% to 15% across the board. Mr. Salo and I talked about how social workers can advocate for clients within a system that is constrained by economics. In the second half of our conversation, Mr. Salo described a future for health care that addressed many of the criticisms of the way managed care was conceptualized. He talked about the role of social workers in this new world of integrative behavioral health. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.