Episode #48: Dr. Kimá Taylor
Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.
Child welfare and maternal-child health policy often treat people as if they arrive one at a time, with neatly defined needs.
That creates a real mismatch with what families experience, and a need for constant translation:
Families have to make themselves legible to programs to get help;
Service providers must make themselves legible to public financing to stay sustainable; and
Advocates in a coalition need to bridge gaps in understanding across areas of expertise to advance an agenda.
Today’s guest understands what that translation work makes possible, and what it costs, better than most.
Dr. Kimá Taylor is a pediatrician whose expertise spans health policy, clinical and public health practice, and philanthropy. She is the Founder and Managing Principal of Anka Consulting and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center.
We talked about what her time on Capitol Hill taught her about crafting effective policy arguments, why advocacy requires more than identifying harm or demanding action, and why bold change and incremental reform are interdependent.
We also talked about the central role of financing in policy, right down to how making a service eligible for Medicaid funding can change how that service is delivered, and whether it works.
Kimá’s perspective is a reminder that financing determines whether a policy vision can deliver, but that you first need a vision clear enough to build a financing strategy around it.
