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Dr. Jeffrey Brenner—executive director of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and family physician—thinks we don’t need to ration health care. “We need to rationalize care,” Brenner said at a recent CSG eCademy session, “Delivering Better Health Care for Less.” The webcast was broadcast live as part of CSG’s 2015 Medicaid Policy Academy in Washington, D.C.

Federal, state and local governments can work together, but it’s not often easy. “Often, the federal, state and local relationship has the characteristics of a Cerberus, this is the three-headed monster,” said Ed DeSeve, senior adviser at the Brookings Institution and special adviser to the president of the United States. “Federal, state and local snarling, not being able to get forward.” DeSeve was one of the featured speakers at a recent CSG eCademy, “The Ins and Outs of Executive Branch Federalism.” It was the first of a three-part Civics Education Series.

Most state leaders have had to make decisions about how to invest scarce resources to create a better economy with little data to back them up. That’s just changed with a new report produced by Elsevier and The Council of State Governments. “America’s Knowledge Economy: A State-by State Review” gives policymakers an overview of the American research landscape, including analysis of individual state research strengths and how those can contribute to economic growth. “Elsevier’s partnership with The Council of State Governments provides, for the first time, an overview of every state’s comparative knowledge economy advantages,” said Brad Fenwick, senior vice president for global strategic alliances at Elsevier. He was one of the featured speakers at a recent CSG eCademy webcast highlighting how states can use the new report.

In an ironic twist, state transportation leaders say if you want to help shore up your state’s transportation funding, you’re going to have to hit the road. “You’ve got to take it on the road,” said state Sen. Mike Vehle, chair of South Dakota’s Senate Transportation Committee and co-chair of CSG’s Transportation Public Policy Committee. He was one of the featured speakers on a recent CSG eCademy, “Status of Federal Transportation Programs, State Impacts & Activities.”

Brian Seasholes doesn’t think the Endangered Species Act does a very good job of protecting the at-risk species it was designed to preserve. Seasholes, a research fellow at the Reason Foundation whose work focuses on wildlife and land-use issues, was the featured speaker at a recent CSG eCademy session, “Bringing a Collaborative Approach to the Endangered Species Act.” He said the act, which was passed in 1973, is a stronger law than most members of Congress realized at the time. If you harm an endangered species or even its unoccupied habitat, you can be subject to up to a $100,000 fine and up to one year in jail.

The U.S. Supreme Court and researchers at Duke University are looking at the same question. When does redistricting move from using a partisan advantage into gerrymandering? Lisa Soronen, executive director of the State and Local Legal Center, said the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus vs. Alabama case currently being decided by the Supreme Court concerns a redistricting plan set up by the courts in 1990. Soronen was one of the featured speakers on a recent CSG eCademy webcast, “Drawing the Line on Partisanship in Redistricting.”

State leaders are getting more creative with their plans for how to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act as they move away from traditional Medicaid programs, but they might be making it harder for those plans to be carried out. The Affordable Care Act gave states the option to expand Medicaid coverage to people who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Several states have filed what are known as Section 1115 waivers which allow states to put their own spin on expansion. The waivers must be approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services before implementation. Jesse Cross-Call, a policy analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said Arkansas was a trailblazer in Medicaid waiver design. Cross-Call was one of the featured speakers on a recent CSG eCademy webcast, “The Latest on Federal Medicaid Waivers.”

Veterans have unique needs when they attend college, but fortunately, state leaders can do quite a few things to help ease their transition into college, civilian life and the workforce. “Generally speaking, their (veterans’) skills are undervalued by the civilian workforce,” said Dawn McDaniel, a U.S. Army veteran and president of Bravo Delta Consulting, a business that partners with companies and governments to help reduce the barriers for veterans in the workforce. “This is largely because the military culture is unknown. With only a 7.5 percent veteran population in the United States, … that leaves a tremendous amount of people who never had any connection or any intimate knowledge of the service and what it means.”

Statehouse watchers think this legislative session is going to be a big one on the transportation funding front. “I think we can say for the next year or two that we’re going to see as much, if not more, activity than we saw in the last two years in legislatures,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America, an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders dedicated to smart investments in transportation. “Frankly, that’s pretty historic.”