(From left) Tom Miller, Kimberly Leonard, Anna Edney, Joanne Kenen and Julie Rovner
The 2020 presidential marketing campaign has begun and well being is a giant a part of it, with Democratic candidates pledging their assist for “Medicare-for-all” and plenty of of its variations.
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats are each promising to do one thing about drug costs and “surprise” medical payments. But whether or not they can translate that settlement on the broad downside to an in depth answer stays to be seen.
This week’s panelists for 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. Joining the panel for this week’s reside present was Tom Miller of the American Enterprise Institute.
Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:
The early jockeying amongst Democrats operating for president is prone to overshadow any efforts to make adjustments to the Affordable Care Act or assist stabilize its insurance coverage marketplaces. Legislative treatments for the ACA marketplaces are anticipated to hit the identical roadblock that senators present in 2017: calls for by conservatives that plans working in these insurance coverage exchanges be banned from providing abortion protection. Although the final concept of increasing Medicare garners excessive public assist, if Democrats agree on a plan to push ahead, it might be anticipated to fulfill robust opposition from the well being care trade. Republicans and Democrats have expressed curiosity in transferring laws to assist decrease drug costs. One space the place they might discover widespread floor could be revisions to the patent legal guidelines to assist spur extra lower-cost generic medicine. Both events additionally say they’re involved about shock payments that sufferers obtain after receiving medical care. Still, there isn’t any consensus on the right way to method the issue, and trade stakeholders are break up on what treatments the nation ought to take.
The panelists additionally mentioned Anna Edney’s sequence on the hazards of generic medicine. You can learn her tales here, here and here.
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