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President Donald Trump had quite a bit to say about well being care in his State of the Union deal with Tuesday evening — not all of it fully correct. Meanwhile, the Iowa Democratic Party discovered itself unable to rely the votes from its presidential caucuses, leaving in query precisely how well being care components into voters’ decisions of candidates.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico.
Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:
Despite quite a few fact-checkers decrying his claims that he has been defending individuals with preexisting circumstances, Trump continues to repeat them. There can be methods to ensure that folks with medical issues be assured protection even when the ACA have been to be struck down, however the administration has not put ahead any such plan. At the identical time, the administration is arguing in courtroom that the ACA — together with its protections for individuals with preexisting circumstances — be struck down in its entirety. And the short-term plans the president often touts as being higher than ACA protection aren’t required to cowl individuals who have preexisting circumstances. Some critics of the president fear that if he wins in November and doesn’t should face voters once more, he might not really feel sure to stay by his promise to not reduce Medicare advantages or Social Security and may very well be swayed by different Republicans who argue that the packages want extra monetary constraints. His argument that “Medicare for All” can be a transfer towards socialized drugs doesn’t stand as much as scrutiny. The plan, endorsed by a number of Democratic presidential candidates, revamps the well being care system in order that the federal government is the one payer for providers. But hospitals, docs and different well being suppliers would stay privately managed. The combined (and late) outcomes from the Iowa Democratic caucuses counsel that despite the fact that well being care is a serious concern for the social gathering trustworthy, their candidate decisions don’t appear to replicate what insurance policies they assume ought to go ahead.
Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Julie Appleby and NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin, who reported the most recent KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment a few battle between an insurance coverage firm and a hospital over a $41,000 invoice for an out-of-network emergency appendectomy. If you’ve got an outrageous medical invoice you wish to share with us, you are able to do that here.
Plus, for further credit score, the panelists suggest their favourite well being coverage tales of the week they assume it’s best to learn too:
Julie Rovner: The New York Times’ “How Chaos at Chain Pharmacies Is Putting Patients at Risk,” by Ellen Gabler
Kimberly Leonard: The Nashville Tennessean’s “Gov. Bill Lee Proposes Extending Postpartum TennCare Coverage to a Full Year,” by Brett Kelman
Alice Miranda Ollstein: The Washington Post’s “States Scramble to Carry Out Trump’s Coronavirus Travel Order,” by Lena H. Sun, Lori Aratani, William Wan and Antonio Olivo
Margot Sanger-Katz: The New York Times’ “Pets Are Just ‘Property,’ So Owners Can’t Do Much When Vets Harm Them,” by Mike Baker
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