MPH Student, Karen Lai, takes the 2nd place nationally in the KaiserEDU student essay contest

The Kaiser Family Foundation announced the winners of its sixth annual essay contest on May 1, 2012, sponsored by the Foundation’s educational health policy website, kaiserEDU.org. The contest prompted the students to identify an element of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that will have a major impact and discuss challenges in its implementation as well as its impact (positive or negative) once it is put into practice. Out of nearly 600 competitors enrolled at colleges and universities across the country in the disciplines of public health, medicine, and nursing, economics, and law, our very own Karen Lai, UCLA School of Public Health, and Duke University Medical School, (expected MPH graduation April 2013, expected MD graduation 2014) won 2nd place in the graduate student entry. Her essay was titled "The Impact of Medicaid on Health Reform."

The final judges included Andy Bindman, MD of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine; Sheila Burke of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; Julie Rovner of NPR; Drew Altman, Ph.D., Kaiser president and CEO; and Diane Rowland, Sc.D., Kaiser executive vice president.

Congratulations Karen!

READ the contest winners' essays.