Christine Buttorff is a policy researcher at RAND. Her primary research interests are in health insurance benefit design and prescription drug policy. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methods for the evaluation of policy interventions.
Buttorff has worked on projects assessing specialty drug coverage, ground and air ambulance transport coverage and payment, and insurance benefit design, particularly in Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D. She is currently working on one evaluation for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI): the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design model test and recently completed work on the Part D Senior Savings model test. She recently completed an evaluation of how cannabis legalization in Colorado affected prescription opioid use.
Prior to completing her dissertation, Buttorff was a reporter for a member station of National Public Radio in Nashville, where she covered government and politics, as well as health care policy at the state and local levels. She was also a dancer with Nashville Ballet during this time. She received her Ph.D. in health economics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the department of Health Policy and Management and her B.S. in political science and B.A. in Italian studies from Santa Clara University.
Ph.D. in health economics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; B.S. in political science, Santa Clara University; B.A. in Italian studies, Santa Clara University
