Judges' Comments
	"Miller took a complex topic as a beat reporter and broke it down into understandable, personal stories so powerful they forced reaction — and improvements — by health care officials."
	The Hospital War

The northern suburbs of Atlanta are booming and affluent, and that means there’s money to be made -- lots of it.

Northside Hospital wanted it all --- working out exclusive contracts with some insurers. St. Joseph’s Hospital, just down the street on Pill Hill, decided to fight back and filed a lawsuit.

What was behind the litigation? Health reporter Andy Miller of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution started digging.

Miller rode with an ambulance service whose paramedics told him about the many babies delivered on clogged freeways making long trips to Northside, where the new mothers were insured. He talked to doctors and hospitals in the area about the difficulties they encountered because of Northside’s policies. He spent time with the Insurance Commissioner’s office to understand their role in the conflict and put insurance companies on his speed dial.

But clearly, the story needed to focus on patients and consumers who were caught in the debate. Miller sought out and interviewed many consumers to find the personal stories of painful delays in treatment, frightening waits for surgery, policies that would have forced a patient with advanced cancer to change doctors in the middle of a course of chemotherapy.

As Miller made phone calls, Northside began to give a little, agreeing to release one far-out hospital from the exclusionary agreements.

Then, Aetna U.S. Healthcare, in contract negotiations with Northside, refused to agree to an exclusionary contract. As the negotiations dragged on, Miller’s stories appeared. Days later, the hospital backed down, allowing Aetna to have a non-exclusive contract.

Miller graduated with a history degree from Duke University in 1973 and earned a master’s in education from Duke in 1979.

For eight years, he was a junior high and high school social studies teacher and basketball coach in North Carolina.

He then attended journalism classes at the University of North Carolina. While there, he worked as a freelance sports reporter and sports copy editor at the Durham Morning Herald.

He joined the Journal-Constitution in 1985 and has been a copy editor, slot editor, education reporter, wire editor and health-care reporter.

During the year 2002, Miller is serving as a Kaiser Media Fellow in Health.