From who should enroll to how to enroll to what they are enrolling in, implementation of the Affordable Care Act provided health policy experts in the USF College of Public Health with a plethora of opportunities to inform the public, engage with media, and interact with elected officials.

Jodi Ray, project director for the Florida Covering Kids & Families program at the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies, managed a $4.2-million navigator grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services. Charged with educating and enrolling consumers in the online marketplace, Ray and her team of navigators have been in high demand since the award announcement in August.

In the past five months, she spoke with The Los Angeles Times, USF’s Oracle, The New Yorker, WUSF, and Al Jazeera America to name a few.

John P. Petrila, JD, LLM, professor and chair of the college’s Department of Health Policy and Management, has been equally as busy addressing various aspects of ACA. At a media event in Tampa, he urged chambers of commerce to expand healthcare coverage in Florida. He advocated a similar position with an op-ed in The Tampa Tribune and was interview by The Los Angeles Times about attempts to thwart healthcare reform in the US.

In November, Dr. Petrila welcomed Health News Florida into his undergraduate class in the USF College of Public Health.

The assignment—Students were charged with trying to log on and navigate the online marketplace known as Healthcare.gov.

The outcome—Tech savvy students struggled just as much as John Q. Citizen …

 

Health Policy and Management’s Dr. Steve Freedman has Medicare and is a happy camper. He recently spoke with Health News Florida to help listeners “Cut Through the Medicare Ad Onslaught.”

Jay Wolfson, DrPH, JD, served on an expert panel addressing viewer questions with WTSP TV, the CBS affiliate in Tampa, and spoke with Sarasota’s Herald-Tribune. Dr. Wolfson is a distinguished public health professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and associate vice president for health law, policy and safety in USF Health.

Photo credits: Dr. Steve Freedman and Dr. John Petrila’s class shot courtesy of WUSF.