Kaiser Family Foundation

Essay Contest

2012 Essay Contest Winners

Graduate Students

1st Place

Ashley Schuyler

Columbia University: Mailman School of Public Health

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2nd Place

Karen Lai

University of California, Los Angeles: Fielding School of Public Health and Duke University: School of Medicine

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Undergraduate Students

1st Place

Tapen undergraduate winner
Colleen Tapen

Georgetown University: Health Care Management and Policy

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2nd Place

Essay Winner Shannon Murphy
Shannon Murphy

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Health Policy and Management

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2012 Essay Contest Topic

Different elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have broad reaching implications for many sectors of the health system, including insurance coverage, public programs, costs, quality of care, technology, public health, and health care workforce.

  • Describe an element of the ACA that you feel will have a major impact on either health or health care (positive or negative).
  • Explain why you think it is important and then discuss the major challenges in its implementation as well as its likely
    impact once it is put into practice.

Your essay must not exceed 1,000 words.

Review and Evaluation:

Submissions from undergraduates and graduates were judged separately. The finalists were selected by a panel of national health policy experts including Sheila Burke from Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Andrew Bindman of the University of California, San Francisco, School of MedicineJulie Rovner of NPR; Diane Rowland and Drew Altman of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Disclaimer

Conclusions or opinions expressed in these essays are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kaiser Family Foundation or the final judges.