The Host
Julie Rovner
KHN
Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KHN’s weekly well being coverage information podcast, “What the Health?” A famous professional on well being coverage points, Julie is the creator of the critically praised reference e book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third version.
Health care was a recurring theme all through President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union tackle on Capitol Hill this week. He took a victory lap on latest accomplishments like capping prescription drug prices for seniors on Medicare. He urged Congress to do extra, together with making everlasting the boosted insurance coverage premium subsidies added to the Affordable Care Act in the course of the pandemic. And he sparred with Republicans within the viewers — who jeered and known as him a liar — over GOP proposals that might reduce Medicare and Social Security.
Meanwhile, abortion rights advocates and opponents are anxiously awaiting a federal courtroom resolution out of Texas that would lead to a nationwide ban on mifepristone, considered one of two medicine utilized in remedy abortion.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet.
Panelists
Rachel Cohrs
Stat News
Sarah Karlin-Smith
Pink Sheet
Alice Miranda Ollstein
Politico
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
- President Joe Biden’s State of the Union tackle emphasised latest victories towards excessive well being care prices, like Medicare protection caps on insulin and out-of-pocket caps on prescription drug spending. Biden’s full of life, casual trade with lawmakers over potential cuts to Medicare and Social Security appeared to steal the present, although the political struggle over chopping prices in these entitlement applications is rooted in a key query: What constitutes a “cut”?
- Biden’s requires bipartisanship to increase well being applications like pandemic-era subsidies for Affordable Care Act well being plans are anticipated to conflict with conservative calls for to slash federal authorities spending. And final 12 months’s Senate fights reveal that typically the opposition comes from inside the Democratic Party.
- While some abortion advocates praised Biden for vowing to veto a federal abortion ban, others felt he didn’t speak sufficient in regards to the looming challenges to abortion entry within the courts. A choice is anticipated quickly in a Texas courtroom case difficult the long run use of mifepristone. The Trump-appointed decide’s resolution might ban the drug nationwide, that means it will be barred even in states the place abortion continues to be authorized.
- The FDA is on the middle of the abortion capsule case, which challenges its approval of the drug a long time in the past and will set a precedent for authorized challenges to the approval of different medicine. In different FDA information, the company not too long ago modified coverage to permit homosexual males to donate blood; introduced new meals security management in response to the child system disaster; and kicked again to Congress a query of how you can regulate CBD, or cannabidiol, merchandise.
- In drug pricing, the top-selling pharmaceutical, Humira, will quickly attain the top of its patent, which is able to provide a telling have a look at how competitors influences the worth of biosimilars — and the issues that stay for lawmakers to resolve.
Also this week, Rovner interviews Kate Baicker of the University of Chicago a few new paper offering a doable center floor within the effort to ascertain common medical insurance protection within the U.S.
Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists recommend well being coverage tales they learn this week they suppose you must learn, too:
Julie Rovner: The New York Times’ “Don’t Let Republican ‘Judge Shoppers’ Thwart the Will of Voters,” by Stephen I. Vladeck
Alice Miranda Ollstein: Politico’s “Mpox Is Simmering South of the Border, Threatening a Resurgence,” by Carmen Paun
Sarah Karlin-Smith: KHN’s “Decisions by CVS and Optum Panicked Thousands of Their Sickest Patients,” by Arthur Allen
Rachel Cohrs: ProPublica’s “UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings,” by David Armstrong, Patrick Rucker, and Maya Miller
Also talked about on this week’s podcast:
Credits
Francis Ying
Audio producer
Emmarie Huetteman
Editor
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