This has been fairly a yr in well being coverage. In 2017, the Affordable Care Act survived quite a few GOP efforts to repeal and change it, though the year-end tax invoice will remove fines for failing to acquire medical health insurance in 2019. And, sarcastically, the extra Republicans talked the well being regulation down, the extra common it bought.
Meanwhile, Congress could have handed the tax invoice, however lawmakers are nonetheless scrambling to complete laws wanted to maintain the federal government open after Dec. 22. On the road in that invoice is the Children’s Health Insurance Program that gives protection to 9 million children across the nation. Its formal funding ran out in September.
This week’s “What the Health?” friends are:
Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News
Joanne Kenen of Politico
Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo
Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times
They focus on these matters in addition to well being points in 2017 that had been much less lined and stay unresolved.
Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:
The Republican repeal of the person mandate penalties will result in greater premiums and better numbers of uninsured, however the magnitude of that change remains to be unknown. The promise Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) secured for payments to assist stabilize the person insurance coverage market has faltered, and people payments is not going to be a part of any end-of-the-year laws. This time, she didn’t produce other reasonable GOP allies to assist strengthen her negotiating place. Two shocking year-end observations: Despite Republicans’ efforts to do away with the Affordable Care Act, the well being regulation appears to be resilient and the general public seems to be extra dedicated than ever to sustaining Medicaid, the well being program for low-income residents. Email Sign-Up
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Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists advocate their favourite well being tales of the week they suppose you must learn, too.
Julie Rovner: Politico’s “The stealth repeal of Obamacare,” by Joanne Kenen
Joanne Kenen: HuffPost’s “Health Insurers See Higher Prices And A Big Mess Ahead Without The Obamacare Mandate,” by Jeffrey Young
Alice Ollstein: Politico’s “HHS defends withholding comments critical of abortion, transgender policy,” by Dan Diamond
Margot Sanger-Katz: Bloomberg’s “A Hospital Giant Discovers That Collecting Debt Pays Better Than Curing Ills,” by John Tozzi and Vox.com’s “How well does bariatric surgery work? We asked 11 people who got it,” by Julia Belluz
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