[Editor’s note: This transcript was generated using both transcription software and a human’s light touch. It has been edited for style and clarity.]
Julie Rovner: Hello from KFF Health News and WAMU public radio in Washington, D.C. Welcome to What the Health? I’m Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News. As all the time, I’m joined by a few of the finest and smartest well being reporters overlaying Washington. We’re taping this week on Thursday, April 30. As all the time, information occurs quick and issues might need modified by the point you hear this. So, right here we go.
Today we’re joined through videoconference by Shefali Luthra of The nineteenth.
Shefali Luthra: Hello.
Rovner: Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post.
Rachel Roubein: Happy to be right here.
Rovner: And Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine.
Joanne Kenen: Hi, all people.
Rovner: No interview this week, however numerous information. So let’s dive proper in. I need to begin with politics this week. The House Ways and Means Committee held a form of outstanding listening to with some massive hospital chain CEOs, at which members from each events took nice public umbrage at hospital pricing practices. The headline on the Ways and Means GOP chair Jason Smith’s opening assertion was, quote, “The Prices You Charge Patients Are Borderline Extortion,” and that was among the many milder costs that he and different committee members lobbed on the witnesses. Yet Ways and Means members have been speaking about issues like site-neutral funds for Medicare and reining within the 340B Drug Pricing Program for actually years now with out truly doing something about them. Was this all only for present? Or may we truly see some motion on hospital pricing this 12 months?
Kenen: They did take a chew at this, in regards to the site-neutral funds, in a restricted — on sure issues. I regarded it up final night time as a result of I figured Julie would understand it by coronary heart however I couldn’t keep in mind. It was 2015. So they did slightly little bit of it, and so they — it was bipartisan. And they didn’t remedy the issue. They form of nibbled across the edges. Consolidation of hospitals and acquisition of doctor practices, and so forth., have intensified within the final decade. So there’s a bipartisan willingness to nibble. We don’t know if there’s a bipartisan and even both aspect actually having the stick-to-itness to get one thing carried out. I wasn’t in that room. Some of you’ll have been on the Hill greater than I get there. I don’t really feel that motion is imminent, however I do assume that the dialog is returning to hospitals in a approach we haven’t seen it for some time. And hospitals are some huge cash.
Rovner: That was my level is that hospitals are the place the cash is in healthcare. Rachel, you wished so as to add one thing.
Roubein: Oh yeah, and we noticed in Trump 1 [President Donald Trump’s first term] some efforts round site-neutral on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. But simply form of politically talking, why the rhetoric is attention-grabbing, it used to traditionally be slightly more durable for lawmakers to take goal at their pleasant neighborhood hospital. They’re main employers of their districts, significantly rural areas, and so they additionally assist lawmakers.
Rovner: Yes, and I might say for many who don’t observe this as weedily as we do, site-neutral fee is when hospitals who personal outpatient clinics cost extra for a similar service within the hospital than they do within the clinic. The artwork justification is, Well, we should assist assist the remainder of the hospital facility, so we should cost extra. And this has been some extent of competition for a while.
Kenen: But that enjoying discipline has modified. So it’s extra, there are extra of them now than there have been when there had been extra unbiased medical practices and extra independently owned, both small chains or non-chain hospitals. The complete hospital business has modified. And if I can add only one different fast reality why, I feel politically, the targets have been insurers and drug firms, proper? And that’s what the dialog’s been about for fairly — the dominant dialog. And I feel it’s as a result of insurance coverage costs are actually excessive, and so they go up yearly, and also you see it in your paycheck week after week. And medication, most of us do go to a pharmacy or have a mail order. So many people are confronted with paying out-of-pocket for a drug, and individuals who don’t have nice insurance coverage may pay quite a bit out-of-pocket for a drug, or they’re on a drug that’s not of their formulary, and so forth. It will be complicated. Most of us in any given 12 months are usually not in a hospital. And generally, once we are in a hospital, we’re grateful for it. It’s not that everyone will get good care and there are not any dangerous outcomes. Of course, there are. But if the hospital I gave delivery at saved my child, I’m grateful for that. And it was a very long time in the past. Eighth grade wasn’t so nice, however the remainder of his life is true. So we’ve a unique relationship by way of how we work together and the way usually we work together with our hospitals.
Rovner: So constructing on that one trace of why Republicans may be feeling freer to criticize hospitals — who’ve lengthy been, as Rachel factors out, essentially the most protected of all of the healthcare stakeholders in Washington — got here from KFF’s latest healthcare tracking poll. Quoting KFF President and CEO Drew Altman’s latest column, which I’ll hyperlink to, quote: “What jumped out from the poll is the value voters place on villainizing health care’s big interests now. It’s like serving up a big fat slow curveball for every candidate to hit.” Putting on my cynical hat, perhaps the message that politicians are taking right here is to speak an enormous recreation on healthcare however don’t do issues that can truly impression negatively the individuals who fund your campaigns. In different phrases, it’s all for present and they’re not planning on doing it.
Luthra: That’s form of the attention-grabbing query, proper? I used to be pondering quite a bit this morning in regards to the actually nice No Surprises Act story in The [New York] Times that Margot Sanger-Katz and Sarah Kliff wrote, and one of many factors that they make is there’s much less political stress when individuals aren’t seeing firsthand the results for reform. And so if there isn’t actually vocal outcry from customers immediately at hospitals as an establishment, the place does that political stress come from? I don’t know that we’ve a solution that implies it could be robust sufficient to outweigh what an vital curiosity hospitals are.
Rovner: Yeah. I need it famous that, along with going after Big Insurance and Big Pharma, members of Congress are actually going after Big Hospital, which, as Joanne factors out, is fairly uncommon. We will see if something comes of it.
Well, one of many causes that healthcare is such a tough topic to, you already know, legislate on is that there are nearly all the time unintended penalties. Lawmakers need to give individuals stuff, and so they need to give healthcare suppliers stuff, however they don’t need to work out how one can pay for it or who ought to pay for it. Case in level — these very fashionable weight reduction medication often known as GLP-1s. The Trump administration final 12 months introduced a deal that may make the medication made by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk — these are the 2 massive makers of those standard medication — would make these medication out there by means of a Medicare pilot program supplied by insurers. But even with the drugmakers agreeing to dramatically slash the medication’ costs, insurers have balked on the added price, inflicting the pilot to be canceled. Now, Medicare plans to pay for the medication itself, apparently, at the least briefly. But after all, that’s going to pile new prices on a program that itself isn’t financially secure, and run the chance of doing to Medicare what many employers are doing to their staff, chopping off protection for these medication after they’ve already began it. There’s no simple resolution to giving individuals new, trendy, even working applied sciences which can be costly, proper?
Kenen: As increasingly more analysis in regards to the potential advantages of those medication — and additionally they’re nonetheless comparatively new. We might be having a complete completely different dialog about long-term use in just a few years. But proper now, one discovering after one other exhibits that it’s not simply weight reduction and diabetes, that there could also be numerous different advantages which nonetheless should be studied or understood higher, and who would profit, and all these questions for the scientists. But these could possibly be, find yourself being as frequent as statins down the highway, and very costly. So then the query is: Who will get the financial savings? Is it going to be value it if Medicare pays for the medication and finally ends up with fewer hospitalizations for superior diabetes issues and amputations and kidney failure and all of the horrible issues that may come from superior, uncontrolled diabetes? Is an insurer — insurers don’t prefer to all the time pay long-term. They don’t prefer to spend one thing tomorrow the place the advantages could also be 10 years down the highway, as a result of that individual won’t be your buyer anymore in 10 years. So you’re investing of their long-term well being, however they’re gonna be paying their premiums to your competitor in 10 or 20 or 30 years. So I simply see that is getting increasingly more and extra costly, or at the least the demand, the increasingly more individuals. How are we defining — diabetes has a scientific definition, however weight problems is slightly fudgier, proper? No pun supposed.
Rovner: Two factors. One is that the one factor we find out about prevention and people who find themselves not kids is that it doesn’t pay for itself. So when you maintain these individuals from dying from their diabetes issues and different issues of weight problems, they’re going to dwell longer and ultimately are going to die of one thing else, and that’s going to be costly. So most likely not a financial savings from CBO’s [the Congressional Budget Office’s] viewpoint. But the opposite factor is that different nations aren’t having this subject, as a result of they’ve worth controls on medication, and we don’t. And strive as laborious as President Trump appears to be doing to piggyback off of different nations’ worth controls, sooner or later — and I assume this harkens again to the hospital dialog — sooner or later Congress, the president, might simply chew the bullet and say: Hey, we’re not going to allow you to cost — we’re not going to purchase your medication when you’re going to cost this a lot. So cost us much less. I don’t see that anytime quickly, however it’s a risk, sure?
Luthra: Certainly. And I feel one factor we’re not desirous about as effectively is what occurs — proper? — when individuals have had entry to those medication after which out of the blue they’re now not coated. And with GLP-1s particularly, it’s truly form of sophisticated and interesting, as a result of we’re seeing all of those compounding pharmacies, some — proper? — extra in compliance with rules than others, creating knockoffs. And individuals, I’ve talked numerous them, will simply go to these locations as a substitute, purchase these merchandise at a worth they’ll afford, however the security, the standard, could or will not be assured. And there’s simply a really massive dialog that we’re not having about all of these penalties and trade-offs that we can’t quantify, by nature of us kicking the can down the highway on coping with the pricing drawback.
Rovner: Yeah, there’s numerous PhD theses which can be going to return out of this. There are simply so many tentacles of it to examine. And Joanne’s proper. We don’t know.
Kenen: Right. Particularly, to mix PhDs. The candy spot goes to be like an AI evaluation of GLP spending, or some 20 years out or no matter. That’s going to be what all of the PhD theses are.
Rovner: Yes, effectively, going from insoluble issues, most of what we speak about is form of by necessity, dangerous information or divisive information. So this week I wished to focus on an precise good-news story in well being coverage. According to a new study within the Journal of the American Medical Association, youth suicides have dropped markedly within the two years following the implementation of the 988 suicide prevention hotline. And whereas it’s laborious to attribute all the enchancment to the hotline’s existence, the researchers had been in a position to tease out that suicides decreased most in states with greater volumes of answered 988 calls and that suicides didn’t change a lot in peer nations that didn’t implement a hotline, like in England. And much more excellent news, whereas the Trump administration ended a particular a part of this system that was aimed toward serving to LGBTQ+ callers final 12 months, HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified throughout his marathon of hearings final week that the division would reinstate that possibility. Now all of this was the results of a bipartisan push in Congress over a number of years. What are the possibilities that seeing one thing good come from working collectively may immediate extra cooperation that issues, that lawmakers may agree on? This is my non-cynic hat.
Kenen: Maybe in another universe.
Rovner: Go head, Rachel.
Roubein: I assumed this was attention-grabbing, as a result of, as you stated, this was one thing that was rolled out with bipartisan assist in 2022. And it got here off of the heels of the pandemic, which actually uncovered points with youth psychological well being. I keep in mind writing in regards to the time this quantity was changing a 10-digit hotline quantity, and advocates, and so forth., weren’t positive how a lot individuals would find out about it, how obtained it could be from that standpoint, since you actually needed to get the message out that this was on the market. So I assumed that these numbers a few years later had been fairly placing.
Rovner: Yeah, I assumed it was placing how briskly that we had been in a position to form of see a distinction.
Kenen: But additionally there’s a historical past going again at the least 10-ish, and most likely longer, years on psychological well being. There’s bipartisanship. There have been a variety of payments, each on opioids and substance abuse and psychological well being generally, not only for children. There’s a number of over, in recent times, about cellular clinics and simply spending more cash. And that is nice information, proper? It’s good. And I feel it helps in this space. Like by, can you’re employed on some youth points? Or might you’re employed on some, proceed working in a bipartisan foundation on psychological well being points? Because this nation has numerous psychological well being challenges. So I feel successful makes that lane broader and higher lit, however I don’t assume it essentially spills over to fixing all of the 800,000 different issues stacked up in Congress. But it’s good. It’s apparent, I assume, not simply good information however I additionally assume it’s excellent news for shifting forward and doing one thing else good.
Rovner: Yeah, I might say it’s excellent news by itself, however it’s additionally doubtlessly excellent news on the Let’s make different coverage and repair different issues within the healthcare system. All proper, we’re going to take a fast break. We might be proper again.
OK, we’re again — and again to divisive stuff. The Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments in a case surrounding glyphosate. That’s the pesticide bought beneath the model title Roundup, which Make America Healthy Again supporters and plenty of scientists say causes, or at the least contributes to, a number of forms of cancers, and which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided isn’t carcinogenic. The case at subject issues whether or not or not the maker of Roundup, Monsanto, ought to have included a warning label on its packaging. I’m much less within the particulars of the case right here, which contain whether or not states have the appropriate to require labeling that the EPA doesn’t, than the break up it’s inflicting within the MAHA motion because the Trump administration backs the EPA’s discovering that glyphosate isn’t carcinogenic, which MAHA supporters discover to be a whole betrayal of their trigger. Does this doubtlessly have as a lot political oomph because the dispute over vaccines? Certainly not serving to the MAHA motion be proud of the Trump administration.
Roubein: This has positively opened fissures between the Make America Healthy Again motion and the Trump administration. On prime of that, I feel one of many issues that individuals within the MAHA motion had been significantly upset about was Trump’s govt order earlier this 12 months to spice up home manufacturing of glyphosate. But on the identical time, we’ve seen the Trump administration try to make good with some MAHA leaders, inviting them to the White House. Some of them even spoke to Trump slightly bit. So you’re form of seeing that form of divide right here with the administration additionally making an attempt to placate as effectively.
Rovner: Yeah, that is form of an interesting political alliance that they’re on the one hand making an attempt to guard and however making an attempt to not enable, significantly relating to issues like vaccines, not let it alienate people who find themselves exterior the motion, which as we’ve seen has turned out to be an especially delicate dance.
Luthra: And we’ve talked about this earlier than, however I feel one factor we nonetheless don’t actually know is simply how amorphous vs. cohesive MAHA as a motion is, and likewise its political efficiency. And there are Senate primaries which can be good assessments of this, [Sen.] Bill Cassidy an apparent one, given his vote on RFK and his stance on vaccines broadly. But we’re nonetheless many months out from realizing if Trump alienating MAHA, if Republican establishments alienating components of the MAHA motion, truly issues. Clearly numerous Democrats assume it’d. That’s why we’re seeing so a lot of them courtroom this constituency. But, yeah, I simply assume we actually have to get a greater sense as to how a lot of this is an affect that has been perhaps slightly bit overvalued, even by us within the press, and the way a lot of it’s truly substantial and influential.
Rovner: Yeah, we all know that the anti-abortion motion is highly effective and seems their voters, and once they make endorsements, once they get behind anyone or once they go in opposition to anyone, they’ve the cash and the ability and the clout and the vote to again that up. We don’t actually know that but about MAHA. I feel that’s a extremely honest level. Joanne you wished so as to add one thing?
Kenen: No I feel we don’t know as a lot. I feel that the Trump individuals assume they’re voters and that they assume they helped them in 2024. But MAHA, I agree with what each of you simply stated. It’s amorphous. There are individuals whose major subject is vaccines, and that’s how many people consider MAHA, however it’s also about wholesome meals. And some issues that individuals might discover frequent floor are the pesticides, the chemical compounds. Those are issues that truly had been recognized extra with Democratic causes or Democratic voters up to now, these, a few of the environmental points. But I assume, Julie, the query you requested is true. It’s a political power, however is it a political power that’s gonna achieve energy or simply form of dissipate? And there’s so many different issues proper now altering the politics of the nation. I don’t assume we might presumably know, even when you took a terrific ballot immediately and discovered they had been mad. We have a fairly brief information cycle.
Rovner: Yeah, we do. We’ll see. All proper. Well, in the meantime, elsewhere within the Trump administration, scientific retribution continues apace. The Justice Department this week introduced the indictment of a former aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci for utilizing his private gadgets and e mail addresses to skirt public file legal guidelines and maintain official communications non-public. Now this isn’t actually information. The scientist, named David Morens, testified earlier than a House listening to in 2024 and principally admitted what he did. So the query right here is whether or not this felony indictment is the start of a brand new effort to publicly punish those that the Trump administration accuse of unspecified wrongdoing concerning their dealing with of the covid pandemic. I might word that this week, clearly, we additionally bought the indictment, once more, of former FBI director Jim Comey. It’s not clear how a lot of that is the Justice Department making an attempt to please President Trump and the way a lot is form of a new effort on this scientific entrance.
Luthra: That’s such a very good query.
Rovner: Thank you.
Luthra: No, I simply, I assume you’re proper. It’s simply not clear, as a result of the appearing lawyer basic hasn’t been in his position for very lengthy. We know one of many causes he has this job is due to dissatisfaction with how Pam Bondi approached the president’s aim of going after political opponents and targets. And so perhaps, in a approach, the why of it doesn’t matter if it creates a notion that this battle on science is, the truth is, renewed or accelerated or regaining steam ultimately. If that’s how individuals really feel and what the results seem like, then there’s clearly a chilling impact that could possibly be even larger than what we’ve already seen.
Rovner: Yeah, and I might level out, it’s a crime to make use of your private gadgets to keep away from public data legal guidelines. It is fairly frequent, however the precise indictment got here so lengthy after this. And is that this the start of a collection of, We’re gonna go punish the individuals who we predict wronged us in the course of the pandemic utilizing no matter energy we are able to discover, or is that this a one-off? And I assume we’ll should see.
Kenen: But I feel he was form of simple pickings as a result of he had publicly admitted it. It’s as much as the courts to determine if he’s responsible of an precise crime or simply not following the foundations. That’s not our choice. But it’s additionally, he was an simple goal as a result of he had admitted it, however he had additionally — it’s a sore spot. It’s the China lab factor. It’s not just a few examine or one thing to do with covid. It was very particularly, there are individuals who imagine it was engineered and a lab leak that—
Rovner: Oh, yeah, this clearly feeds into that. Right?
Kenen: Into that conspiracy idea, which is unproven, and we could by no means know the total story of how covid emerged, however that’s a political button for a sure section of Trump supporters.
Rovner: Well, the administration’s ideologic purge continues as effectively. Late final week, the president fired all 22 members of the advisory board for the National Science Foundation. Now, the National Science Board is a bipartisan group that has suggested the NSF since 1950. It is hardly stuffed with political firebrands. Also this week, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health [Services] Administration introduced it could now not pay for take a look at strips to see if medication are adulterated with fentanyl or different doubtlessly lethal substances, as a result of it “facilitates,” air quotes, unlawful drug use. Now there’s a lengthy and vigorous debate about whether or not such hurt discount insurance policies shield lives or encourage unlawful drug customers to proceed to make use of medication, or each. But it does look form of bizarre the week after the administration sought to loosen restrictions on each marijuana and hallucinogens. Yes?
It doesn’t really feel very constant. Let’s put it that approach. Though on the one hand, No extra hurt discount, however we’re going to make it simpler so that you can use LSD and marijuana, as a result of Joe Rogan thinks that it might show you how to with PTSD]. Which perhaps it can — I’m not suggesting that was a flawed choice. I’m simply suggesting that it doesn’t look very constant on a coverage degree.
Kenen: That’s a very good phrase, Julie.
Luthra: No. You’re proper, I feel, to focus on the Joe Rogan perhaps not manosphere however podcast-adjacent world the place clearly you are attempting to attraction to a really particular demographic by loosening rules on marijuana or LSD particularly. And perhaps it’s so simple as numerous the social gathering drug stimulants don’t match into that demographic, on the danger of being extremely reductive, like cocaine is related to Brat summer time. Brat summer time isn’t — proper? — the Joe Rogan-adjacent cultural power. I don’t know, perhaps there’s one thing to there that this doesn’t match into that very same coverage class due to who’s seen because the individuals who find yourself form of becoming into these completely different drug areas.
Rovner: It does really feel form of overtly political, although, that going after explicit teams of people that may or won’t assist you. Not that each, clearly, each administration is overtly political in some methods. They need to assist the individuals who assist them and never assist the individuals who don’t assist them. This simply feels far more choosing and selecting audiences.
Kenen: I feel you’re proper, and it’s additionally a shift. I feel that the nation made numerous progress in, once more, that bipartisan psychological well being push we had been speaking about a couple of minutes in the past. There was a larger understanding that dependancy is a illness — there’s a felony factor, it’s an unlawful drug, and there’s dangerous individuals concerned in that market, clearly — however that this isn’t solely a felony justice subject. This can be a psychological well being and well being subject, and that individuals want therapy. So we did form of, not 100%, however we bought significantly better at desirous about that. Chris Christie was one of many first appointees that Trump made in his first time period on that preliminary opioid fee who actually pressed that message. And this simply appears to be a form of demographic and sophistication for subsectors of the inhabitants, who’s the Silicon Valley people who find themselves into psychedelics vs. who’s utilizing quote-unquote “street” medication. So we’ll simply should see how this performs out.
Roubein: Oh, I feel with fentanyl strips, particularly, we’ve seen form of a ping-pong with administrations, too. With, you’re speaking in regards to the politics, like Elinore McCance Katz, beneath Trump 1, who was the top of SAMHSA, opposed this. And then the Biden administration got here in, and so they had their drug technique, which leaned closely into hurt discount, which, as you talked about duly, has been political.
Rovner: Going again to needle exchanges within the early 2000s. It’s all the time been: Do you need to make it safer? And when you do make it safer, does that deter individuals from stopping utilizing unlawful medication? That’s form of the age-old debate about hurt discount. But you additionally don’t need once we had the overdose disaster, significantly when fentanyl first got here on the scene. Do you actually need individuals dying of fentanyl once they might have a take a look at strip that prices a greenback and discover out it’s, like: Ooh, this factor has been reduce with fentanyl. Maybe I shouldn’t take it.
Kenen: Right. Because in case your aim is to get individuals into therapy and off of medication, you can’t do that when they’re useless.
Rovner: That is very true. All proper. Finally, this week, there’s vaccine information, as a result of there’s all the time vaccine information lately. The choice by the Department of Health and Human Services to drop the advice for the delivery dose of the vaccine to guard in opposition to hepatitis B might lead to tons of of instances of the illness that would have been prevented and hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in extra healthcare prices to deal with liver most cancers and different issues. That’s in accordance with a pair of studies on this week’s JAMA Pediatrics journal. That’s partly as a result of not each pregnant girl will get examined earlier than giving delivery, and likewise as a result of there are different methods infants can contract the virus, that individuals maintain saying, Oh, it’s solely sexually transmitted. It’s not solely sexually transmitted. There is such a factor as family transmission. I don’t suppose this examine goes to vary anyone’s thoughts who wished the change on the hepatitis B vaccine within the first place, although, will it?
Roubein: I feel we’ve seen individuals of their camps on this one. The medical institution, even some Republicans, Sen. Cassidy, and so forth., had been upset about this choice.
Rovner: Yes, Sen. Cassidy, who’s a liver specialist and is especially sad with this choice, and but, you already know, science. So we’ll see if this additionally performs out.
All proper. That is that this week’s information. Now it’s time for our extra-credit section. That’s the place we every acknowledge a narrative we learn this week we predict it’s best to learn, too. Don’t fear when you miss it. We will put up the hyperlinks in our present notes in your telephone or different cellular gadget. Shefali, why don’t you begin us off this week?
Luthra: Mine is from The Atlantic and KFF Health News by the fantastic Elisabeth Rosenthal. The headline is “A ‘Barbaric’ Problem in American Hospitals Is Only Getting Bigger.” And I might very a lot say that it’s best to learn this in installments, as a result of it’s very, very tough to get by means of. It’s about how her husband died within the emergency room, and simply the standard of care that he bought, and for the way lengthy he was simply boarded and — proper? — saved with out actually getting the suitable care, and the way they knew that this was going to occur, as a result of it had occurred so many occasions and so they’d gone to the ER. And she makes use of her expertise as a journalist to additionally spotlight how the issue of boarding has truly gotten quite a bit worse, which I didn’t understand, and we’ve all recognized for a very long time that boarding is horrible, and being within the emergency division is definitely actually dangerous for you numerous the time, although it’s purported to be a spot for individuals within the midst of well being crises. And I feel there’s simply a extremely efficient mix of what her household’s story is and what the coverage issues are. And — proper? — by the tip she realizes the one solution to get acceptable look after her husband is to name anyone who she is aware of and see if they’ll get particular therapy, which it simply form of is the way in which it’s, I feel, in numerous these emergency departments. And I hope that when individuals learn this and take into consideration the experiences of their family members getting emergency care, they create us to one thing the place truly we are able to repair this. Because it appears like it’s one thing that, talking of issues which can be simple to repair, everybody ought to need to.
Rovner: Yeah, completely. It is kind of the story. Rachel.
Roubein: My further credit score this week, the headline is “Big Companies Position Themselves for Payday From $50B Federal Rural Health Fund,” by KFF Health News’ Sarah Jane Tribble. She writes in regards to the $50 billion pot of cash Congress earmarked for rural healthcare in America, which got here amid Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill final summer time, which additionally reduce cash to Medicaid. And Sarah, she writes in regards to the tussle to get funds, which is form of a persistent drawback that we see in healthcare, and the way small group healthcare suppliers could discover they’re sharing the billions with, as she known as it, “an army of corporate giants before it reaches their patients.” And she talks about form of a scarcity of digital infrastructure, which is mostly a problem at rural hospitals, however how some state plans confirmed {that a} “heavy dose” of spending will go to firms that “increase the use of electronic health records, strengthen cybersecurity, and improve state and health system technology platforms.” I favored the story as a result of I feel it’s actually attention-grabbing to see this combat over how one can get funding on your healthcare system.
Rovner: And making the purpose that they’re taking cash away from all people. And they are saying they’re giving again. First of all, they’re taking a trillion, $900 billion out and giving $50 billion again, so it doesn’t make up for the cuts. But additionally that the cash that they’re giving again isn’t going to the locations the place they’re doing the chopping, which I feel is form of the broader level. Sorry. Go forward. Joanne.
Kenen: This is from ProfessionalPublica, by Anna Clark: “Unfounded Health Concerns Are Powering a Solar Backlash.” Basically, there’s now a brand new thread of disinformation that solar energy is dangerous for us, not the ability however that the method of capturing the solar’s energy, that radiation is obstructing issues, and the noise, that there’s form of, quote, “visual pollution.” So anyway, it’s interfering with the expansion of, the unfold of solar energy in Michigan, which is likely one of the states that had been form of — fairly far north and fairly chilly — I hadn’t realized it was one of many focused states for an enormous push for photo voltaic power, however it’s. We’ve seen well being disinformation about just about every part, and the newest is the solar.
Rovner: Yeah, actually attention-grabbing story. My further credit score this week is from The New York Times, by Christina Jewett and Benjamin Mueller, and it’s known as “While Advising Kennedy, Top Aide Had More Than $25 Million Stake in Wellness Company.” The aide in query, Calley Means, is the brother of the wellness influencer nominated to function surgeon basic, Casey Means. And now Calley Means is a full-time common worker within the federal authorities. But for many of final 12 months, when he was advising HHS Secretary Kennedy as a, quote, “special government employee,” he additionally continued to carry a big stake within the well being firm Truemed, which earnings from individuals utilizing cash of their well being financial savings accounts to pay for medical bills insurance coverage doesn’t cowl. According to the story, that features issues like $10,000 saunas and radiation-blocking underwear. And well being financial savings accounts had been dramatically expanded final 12 months within the Republican price range invoice. Now, Calley Means says he didn’t work on HSA coverage, however it’s laborious to disregard simply all of the appearances of conflicts on this administration. And simply because there are such a lot of of them, shouldn’t actually normalize it. So this has been actually good shoe leather-based reporting right here.
OK, that’s this week’s present. Before we go, some well-deserved kudos to a few of our podcast panelists. [Bloomberg’s] Anna Edney has been named a winner of the annual NIHCM [National Institute for Health Care Management] well being awards for her work on a series in regards to the excessive price and sometimes restricted profit of latest most cancers medication, and [The Washington Post’s] Lauren Weber and our personal Shefali Luthra right here have been named finalists for the University of Michigan’s Livingston Award for younger journalists, together with KFF Health News’ Aneri Pattani. I’m not kidding after I say we allow you to hear from the very best and smartest reporters overlaying healthcare.
As all the time, because of our editor this week, Stephanie Stapleton, and our producer-engineer, Francis Yang. A reminder: What the Health? is now out there on WAMU platforms, the NPR app, and wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to, after all, kffhealthnews.org. Also, as all the time, you may e mail us your feedback or questions. We’re at whatthehealth@kff.org. Or you may nonetheless discover me on X, @jrovner, or on Bluesky, @julierovner. Where are you guys hanging lately? Joanne.
Kenen: On Bluesky and LinkedIn.
Rovner: Rachel.
Roubein: On X, @rachel_roubein. Bluesky, @rachelroubein.
Rovner: Shefali.
Luthra: On Bluesky, @shefali.
Rovner: We might be again in your feed subsequent week. Until then, be wholesome.
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