Significant social policy debate focuses on why the U.S. never achieved guaranteed health insurance for all citizens and whether universal or targeted programs are the answer. The typical American approach is to enact targeted programs and then focus on incremental expansions. Thus the crucial policy question is whether targeted programs can transform themselves into programs with universal characteristics. Dr. Grogan's project centers on the Medicaid program and its evolution from a public assistance program for the indigent to a payer of long-term care services for the middle class. Her objectives are threefold: 1) document Medicaid's partial universalization, analyzing how and why this expansion occurred; 2) evaluate its impact on the treatment of originally-targeted groups and on policymakers' support for the program; and 3) examine whether Medicaid's policy legacy limits the prospects for further expansions to new population groups or for improved services to existing Medicaid groups.

She has published broadly on issues of health policy and politics and U.S. health and welfare policies targeted at vulnerable populations. Recent publications include "A Marriage of Convenience: The History of Nursing Home Coverage and Medicaid" in Putting the Past Back In: History and Health Policy in the United States, "The Politics of Aging within Medicaid" in The New Politics of Old Age Policy, "Medicaid at the Crossroads" (with E. Patashnik) in Healthy, Wealthy and Fair: Health Care and the Good Society, and "Deliberative Democracy in Theory and Practice: Connecticut's Medicaid Managed Care Council" (with M.K. Gusmano) in State Politics & Policy Quarterly