5 of 10 questions policy researchers—and all healthcare stakeholders—should be asking this year and next

In healthcare policymaking, priorities are like flaming swords to a circus juggler. It’s easy to take on one too many—and overlook the overreach until a burn or laceration halts the show. 

The word picture is not written but suggested between the lines of a paper published this month in Health Affairs Scholar. 

In the article, Jose Francisco Figueroa, MD, MPH, of Harvard and nine other research experts narrow the field of possible priorities in health policy research to 10. 

Their main interest is helping fellow researchers home in on the most pressing issues facing federal and state policymakers as of 2026 and 2027, the endgame being to help these officials make informed decisions about governing U.S. healthcare. 

The team places the 10 priorities under five domains: 

• Healthcare access, coverage, quality and delivery system reform; 
   
• Corporatization and financialization of healthcare systems; 
   
• Pharmaceutical policy and health services research; 
   
• International comparisons and cross-national learning; and 
   
• Innovation, technological advancements and resiliency of health systems. 

Across these topics, Figueroa and co-authors underscore the need for “rigorous, policy-relevant research that moves beyond descriptive analyses to evaluate mechanisms, implementation and real-world impacts.”

Here are excerpts from five of the 10 research priorities, each of which the authors frame as a question.

1. How will the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reshape coverage, access, outcomes and economic security?

This legislation represents one of the most significant retrenchments of public benefits in decades, with projected reductions of more than $900 billion in Medicaid spending over 10 years. Among the areas of dedicated research OBBBA warrants, Figueroa and colleagues believe, are those involving administrative burdens. 

Recent research has shown how procedural complexity can function as a de facto eligibility restriction, the authors note. “Much of the projected insurance disenrollment arises not from ineligibility but from new work reporting requirements and more frequent eligibility redetermination,” they point out. 

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‘Moving forward, it will be important to track how administrative burdens affect ongoing coverage losses, enrollment trajectories, physical and mental health, medical debt, uncompensated care and rural hospital viability.’

2. What does the ongoing corporatization of the healthcare system mean for patients, providers and prices?

Health Affairs Scholar has already published evidence showing how emerging ownership structures influence market behavior, Figueroa and team note. However, they write, the rapid evolution of these models “creates an urgent need for research that can inform competition policy, payment reform and regulatory oversight.” 

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‘Such timely information can help policymakers understand which forms of corporatization create efficiencies, which raise antitrust or regulatory concerns, and which policy tools can best protect patients and promote competition.’

3. How is the 340B Drug Pricing Program and its impact on access and spending evolving?

Established in 1992 to support safety-net providers, the 340B program has expanded in recent years to now encompass more than 40% of acute care hospitals in the U.S., the authors show. The program’s remarkable growth has “sparked litigation by manufacturers against covered entities and bipartisan proposals for reform,” they write. And prior research has concentrated on “evaluating the limited role of contract pharmacies in improving access for patients.” 

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‘To help inform ongoing debates, it is essential to provide new evidence on whether 340B continues to achieve its statutory goals, how hospitals use 340B-generated revenues, and how reforms might better allocate resources to the hospitals and clinics most in need.’ 

4. How should health systems and payment models respond to disruptions driven by climate change?

Both healthcare systems and payment models remain “largely unprepared” for conundrums in this category, Figueroa and colleagues report. “A priority is research that evaluates investments in system resilience, including infrastructure hardening, supply chain adaptation and workforce planning,” they write. “Equally important is research on how payment models and regulatory frameworks can incentivize preparedness rather than reactive response.”

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‘Studies linking climate events to utilization, spending and disparities will be essential to inform both federal and state policy. Additionally, research that helps us build a more climate-resilient health system is strongly encouraged.’

5. What are the effects of artificial intelligence on healthcare costs, outcomes and equity—and what are the implications for health policy?

While AI technologies hold promise for improving efficiency and quality, their adoption has outpaced the development of governance frameworks, payment models and evaluation standards, Figueroa and co-authors write. Meanwhile, algorithms trained on incomplete or biased data “may reinforce existing disparities, while opaque decision-making processes can make oversight challenging.”

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‘It will be important for researchers to generate evidence on how AI will affect the quality of care, clinician workload, costs of care and patient outcomes.’

There’s a lot more to mull in the paper. Much of the content is relevant to all healthcare professionals and stakeholders, not just researchers, and it’s posted in full for free.