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Natalie Lawson

is a Senior State Policy Analyst at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families.

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Natalie Lawson is a Senior State Policy Analyst with the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. She began her career as a community mental health social worker in Chicago for low-income adults with severe mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Natalie went on to hold various positions relating to health and behavioral health, including research and analysis at policy advocacy non-profits and working on federal and state technical assistance contracts. Prior to this role, she was a Graduate Research Associate on the Healthy Michigan Project examining the impact of Michigan’s Medicaid expansion in the state. Natalie holds an MHSA from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a BS in Psychology from Loyola University Chicago.

Latest

  • Maximizing the Use of Self-Help Resources Should Be a Priority as HR 1 Policies Are Implemented

    As the 41 states that expanded Medicaid to low-income adults under the Affordable Care Act, approach the implementation of H.R. 1’s federally mandated semi-annual renewals, we thought it would be helpful to review how states handled the daunting task of outreach during the unwinding of the pandemic-era Medicaid continuous coverage provision. During the unwinding, we…

  • 988 Mental Health Crisis Line Evolves Nationally, States Seek Stable Funding

    We haven’t done an update on the 988 mental health crisis line in quite some time and some big changes have been happening! However, in the interim, we have been keeping up to date with the monthly data published by Vibrant Emotional Health to track state-by-state progress in a previous blog. You can find all…

  • What to Expect From States When They’re Expecting Big Changes Due to HR 1

    The passage of the recently enacted tax and budget law (HR1) will have major implications for state budgets, but the impact will be disproportionate. For example, Medicaid, expansion states (plus Wisconsin and Georgia) will be required to implement work requirements, increasing administrative costs while putting up barriers to enrollment and retention. Other states will be…

  • Fraud and Abuse Against Medicaid: Rhetoric and Reality in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

    We have not cut Medicaid, and we have not cut SNAP.  What we’re doing…is working on fraud, waste, and abuse. And everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that that’s a responsibility of Congress….[Medicaid] is intended for vulnerable populations, for young single pregnant women and the elderly and the disabled and people who desperately…

  • Research Update: Estimates of State Impact of Medicaid Cuts

    As we have written about extensively on Say Ahhh!, Medicaid is facing large cuts in the budget reconciliation process with hundreds of billions of dollars on the chopping block. It’s unclear how policymakers will meet the hundreds of billions in cuts assigned to programs under the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee but…