The Host
Julie Rovner
KFF Health News
Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly well being coverage information podcast, “What the Health?” A famous skilled on well being coverage points, Julie is the writer of the critically praised reference e-book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third version.
Early Thursday afternoon, the House authorised a funds reconciliation invoice that not solely would make everlasting a lot of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, but additionally impose deep cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and, not directly, Medicare.
Meanwhile, these appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a key vaccine advisory panel used their first official assembly to forged doubt on a preservative that has been utilized in flu vaccines for many years — with research displaying no proof of its hurt in low doses.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Maya Goldman of Axios, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet.
Panelists
Maya Goldman
Axios
Sarah Karlin-Smith
Pink Sheet
@sarahkarlin-smith.bsky.social
Alice Miranda Ollstein
Politico
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
This week the GOP steamrolled towards a serious constriction of the nation’s social security web, pushing via Trump’s tax and spending invoice. The laws comprises important modifications to the way in which Medicaid is funded and delivered — particularly, via imposing this system’s first federal work requirement on many enrollees. Hospitals say the modifications can be devastating, doubtlessly ensuing within the lack of companies and services that might contact all sufferers, not solely these on Medicaid.
Some proposals in Trump’s invoice have been dropped throughout the Senate’s consideration, together with a ban on Medicaid protection for gender-affirming care and federal funding cuts for states that use their very own Medicaid funds to cowl immigrants with out authorized standing. And for all of the discuss of not touching Medicare, the laws’s repercussions for the deficit are anticipated to set off spending cuts to this system that covers these over 65 and a few with disabilities — doubtlessly as quickly as the following fiscal yr.
The newly reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met final week, and it regarded fairly completely different from earlier conferences: In addition to new members, there have been fewer staffers available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — and the notable presence of vaccine critics. The panel’s vote to reverse the advice of flu pictures containing a mercury-based preservative — plus its plans to overview the childhood vaccine schedule — trace at what’s to return.
Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists counsel well being coverage tales they learn this week that they suppose it’s best to learn, too:
Julie Rovner: The Lancet’s “Evaluating the Impact of Two Decades of USAID Interventions and Projecting the Effects of Defunding on Mortality up to 2030: A Retrospective Impact Evaluation and Forecasting Analysis,” by Daniella Medeiros Cavalcanti, et al.
Alice Miranda Ollstein: The New York Times’ “‘I Feel Like I’ve Been Lied To’: When a Measles Outbreak Hits Home,” by Eli Saslow.
Maya Goldman: Axios’ “New Docs Get Schooled in Old Diseases as Vax Rates Fall,” by Tina Reed.
Sarah Karlin-Smith: Wired’s “Snake Venom, Urine, and a Quest to Live Forever: Inside a Biohacking Conference Emboldened by MAHA,” by Will Bahr.
Also talked about on this week’s episode:
Credits
Francis Ying
Audio producer
Emmarie Huetteman
Editor
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