The American Political Science Association, Health Politics and Policy Section, named Dr. Miriam Laugesen, assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, recipient of the 2014 Leonard S. Robins Best Paper Award. Dr. Laugesen’s winning paper, “Policy Complexity and Professional Capture” argues that the complexity of the Medicare Fee Schedule is a significant barrier to effective policymaking in Medicare. Government officials must master the intricacy of payment policy under resource and other constraints: under federal law, Medicare administrators are required to provide opportunities for democratic representation of interests in the rulemaking process. This further increases the “search costs” and up-front informational investment required to assess policy impact and therefore develop appropriate policies. This work was  funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.

Dr. Laugesen is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, and Health Economics, Policy and Law.