NU580 Unit 2 DQ 1: State Health Report Card
Four questions chained together, and the second is the one that decides the post: what your state's indicators imply about what Medicare and Medicaid will and will not pay for.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 16, 2026
Four questions, and the Medicare one is the hinge
The prompt looks like five bullet points but it is really four questions in a chain, and each one has to hand something to the next. Start with your state's key health indicators, which means real figures from the report card rather than an impression of where your state ranks. Pick three or four indicators that actually move together — obesity, diabetes prevalence, uninsured rate, premature death — because a list of twelve unrelated numbers gives the later sections nothing to work with. Then the hinge: how those indicators relate to what is and is not covered under Medicare and Medicaid. This is the question students skip, and it is answerable. Medicare covers a defined set of preventive services with no cost sharing, and Medicaid coverage of the same services varies by state and by eligibility category. Where your indicator is bad and the corresponding service is thinly covered, you have found the argument the post is looking for.
Direct and indirect burden is a technical distinction, not a rhetorical one. Direct burden is what is spent treating the condition: admissions, medication, procedures. Indirect burden is what the condition costs outside the health system — lost productivity, unpaid caregiving, premature mortality measured as years of potential life lost. Students almost always report direct cost and call it the burden, which understates the case badly for chronic conditions where the indirect share is the larger one. Say which you are quoting. The final question then has something to bite on: policy acts on indicators through coverage decisions, eligibility thresholds and funding for prevention, so name a specific policy lever and trace it to one of your indicators. Medicaid expansion status is the obvious candidate because it differs by state and has a measurable effect on the uninsured rate you already reported. Say which way the lever moved and over what period; a policy named without a direction explains nothing.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Read a state health report card for indicators rather than for rank.
- 02Connect a population indicator to a specific coverage decision.
- 03Separate direct from indirect burden and quantify at least one of each.
- 04Trace a named policy lever to a named indicator.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS Discussion Questions (DQ) Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. NU580-7B Unit 2 DQ 1 One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses. Weekly Participation Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. APA Format and Writing Quality Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required). Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation. I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition. Use of Direct Quotes I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source. LopesWrite Policy For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me. Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes. Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own? Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score. Late Policy The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01Three or four key indicators for your state, with figures and their source.
- 02An explicit statement of what Medicare and Medicaid do and do not cover for those conditions.
- 03Direct burden and indirect burden treated separately, each with an example.
- 04A named policy lever traced to one of your indicators.
- 05Citations to the report card and to federal coverage documentation.
Indicators first, coverage second, burden third, policy last
Your state's key health indicators
Present three or four indicators from the report card with figures.
How those indicators shape health status
Explain what the indicators imply for the population you serve.
What Medicare and Medicaid cover, and what they do not
Map the indicators onto coverage and coverage gaps.
Direct and indirect burden
Quantify the two kinds of burden separately for one condition.
Policy as the mechanism
Trace one policy lever through to one indicator.
Finding your state's report card and reading it properly
Recommended databases
- Your state department of health data portal
- Healthy People 2030
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- PubMed Central
Search sequence
- 1.Download your state's report card first and pick indicators from it, not from memory.
- 2.Cross-check each indicator against the Healthy People 2030 leading indicators for a national comparison.
- 3.Use CMS's own pages for coverage claims rather than a summary site.
- 4.Search PMC for a burden-of-disease study to source the indirect-cost figure.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Leading Health Indicators - Healthy People 2030
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services · 2024
The national leading health indicators, giving your state figures something to be compared against.
- 02
Access to Health Services
Healthy People 2030, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion · 2024
Evidence linking access to outcomes — the mechanism behind the coverage half of the post.
- 03
Value-Based Programs
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · 2025
How Medicare ties payment to outcomes, which is the policy lever the last section needs.
- 04
Social Determinants of Health - Healthy People 2030
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion · 2025
Social determinants framing for the indirect-burden argument.
- 05
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Services and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
American Journal of Public Health · 2015
Coverage expansion and service disparities — a worked example of policy moving an indicator.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Reporting a state ranking instead of the underlying indicators.
- Skipping the coverage question because it feels like a health-policy course, not a nursing one.
- Reporting treatment cost and calling that the total burden.
- Naming policy in the abstract with no lever and no indicator attached.
Submission checklist
- Are your indicators figures with a year and a source?
- Have you said what is NOT covered, as the prompt asks, not only what is?
- Are direct and indirect burden distinguished and both present?
- Does your policy section name a specific lever?
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Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
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PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.