Reaction continues to be coming in about final week’s federal courtroom ruling that declared the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. And almost last numbers for insurance coverage sign-ups at healthcare.gov have been surprisingly brisk regardless of the elimination of the well being legislation’s tax penalty for not having insurance coverage and a dramatically shrunken finances for outreach and enrollment help.
The panelists for this year-end version of KHN’s “What the Health?” are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner. Listen in to listen to their selections for many essential well being coverage story of the yr, most overhyped and nerdiest, amongst others.
Also, Rovner interviews Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and strategist, about the way forward for the well being care situation for the GOP.
Among the takeaways:
As a response to the courtroom choice invalidating the ACA, Senate Democrats tried to pressure a vote that may have Congress intervene within the lawsuit in help of the legislation. Republicans rebuffed that effort. But for Republicans, the courtroom ruling might be a minefield as a result of Republican state officers introduced the case and it might influence many in style provisions of the legislation. Numerous GOP lawmakers are looking for to maintain a long way from the case — no less than now. Enrollment in insurance coverage supplied on the ACA’s marketplaces stunned many individuals this week. The sign-up interval for many states closed final week and the general numbers seem like about four % decrease than final yr. That is a smaller distinction than many individuals anticipated for the reason that penalty for not having insurance coverage is disappearing in 2019 and different, much less complete plans have been championed by the Trump administration.
Plus, for additional credit score, the panelists advocate their favourite well being coverage tales or books of 2018 they suppose you need to learn, too:
Julie Rovner: The Arkansas Times’ “Locked Out of Medicaid,” by Benjamin Hardy
Joanne Kenen: “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup,” by John Carreyrou
Anna Edney: The New Yorker’s “Why Doctors Hate Their Computers,” by Atul Gawande
Kimberly Leonard: BuzzFeed News’ “Here’s How Cornell Scientist Brian Wansink Turned Shoddy Data Into Viral Studies About How We Eat,” by Stephanie M. Lee
To hear all our podcasts, click here.
And subscribe to What the Health? on iTunes, Stitcher or Google Play.