The Host
Emmarie Huetteman
KFF Health News
Emmarie Huetteman, senior editor, oversees a crew of Washington reporters, in addition to “Bill of the Month” and KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” She beforehand spent greater than a decade reporting on the federal authorities, most just lately protecting shock medical payments, drug pricing reform, and different well being coverage debates in Washington and on the marketing campaign path.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement that the federal authorities will cancel almost $500 million in mRNA analysis funding is unnerving not solely for individuals who develop vaccines, but additionally for public well being specialists who see the know-how behind the primary covid-19 pictures because the nation’s finest hope to fight a future pandemic.
And President Donald Trump is demanding that main pharmaceutical corporations supply many American sufferers the identical costs out there to sufferers abroad. It isn’t the primary time he’s made such threats, and drugmakers — who scored a few wins in opposition to Medicare negotiations within the president’s tax and spending legislation — are unlikely to volunteer to drop their costs.
This week’s panelists are Emmarie Huetteman of KFF Health News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post.
Panelists
Sarah Karlin-Smith
Pink Sheet
@sarahkarlin-smith.bsky.social
Sandhya Raman
CQ Roll Call
Lauren Weber
The Washington Post
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
Explaining the choice to cancel some mRNA vaccine funding, a precedence for vaccine critics, Kennedy falsely claimed that the know-how is ineffective in opposition to respiratory sicknesses. Researchers have been making headway into mRNA vaccines for maladies reminiscent of chook flu and even most cancers, and the Trump administration’s opposition to backing vaccine improvement weakens the prospects for future breakthroughs.
Trump’s insistence that big-name drugmakers voluntarily decrease their costs underscores how few instruments the presidency has to ship outcomes on this essential pocketbook challenge for a lot of Americans. Medicare’s capability to barter drug costs took successful beneath Trump’s huge tax-and-spending legislation, which included two provisions advocated by the pharmaceutical business that might delay or exclude some costly medicine from the dealmaking course of.
A 12 months after Trump promised on the marketing campaign path to safe protection of in vitro fertilization, the White House reportedly just isn’t planning to compel insurers to pay for these dear reproductive companies — a change that might require an act of Congress and will increase prices general.
And with Congress again dwelling for its August recess and a late September deadline looming, the annual authorities funding course of is in progress — however unlikely to resolve shortly or cleanly. Senate appropriators are additional alongside of their work than common, however the House of Representatives has but to launch its model, which is anticipated to chop deeper and hit social points like abortion tougher.
Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists counsel well being coverage tales they learn (or wrote) this week that they assume it is best to learn, too:
Emmarie Huetteman: KFF Health News’ “New Medicaid Federal Work Requirements Mean Less Leeway for States,” by Katheryn Houghton and Bram Sable-Smith.
Sarah Karlin-Smith: Slate’s “Confessions of a Welfare Queen,” by Maria Kefalas.
Sandhya Raman: CQ Roll Call’s “Sweden’s Push for Smokeless Products Leads Some To Wonder About Risks,” by Sandhya Raman.
Lauren Weber: The New York Times’ “‘Hot Wasps’ Found at Nuclear Facility in South Carolina,” by Emily Anthes.
Also talked about on this week’s podcast:
Credits
Francis Ying
Audio producer
Stephanie Stapleton
Editor
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