The Host
Julie Rovner
KFF Well being Information
Learn Julie’s tales.
Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Well being Information’ weekly well being coverage information podcast, “What the Well being?” A famous knowledgeable on well being coverage points, Julie is the writer of the critically praised reference e book “Well being Care Politics and Coverage A to Z,” now in its third version.
Early Thursday afternoon, the Home authorized a price range reconciliation invoice that not solely would make everlasting lots of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, but additionally impose deep cuts to Medicaid, the Inexpensive Care Act, and, not directly, Medicare.
In the meantime, these appointed by Well being and Human Companies 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 Well being Information, 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 many takeaways from this week’s episode:
- This week the GOP steamrolled towards a serious constriction of the nation’s social security web, pushing by Trump’s tax and spending invoice. The laws accommodates important adjustments to the way in which Medicaid is funded and delivered — particularly, by imposing this system’s first federal work requirement on many enrollees. Hospitals say the adjustments could be devastating, doubtlessly ensuing within the lack of providers and amenities that would contact all sufferers, not solely these on Medicaid.
- Some proposals in Trump’s invoice had 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 subsequent fiscal 12 months.
- The newly reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met final week, and it seemed fairly completely different from earlier conferences: Along with new members, there have been fewer staffers readily available from the Facilities for Illness Management 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 assessment the childhood vaccine schedule — trace at what’s to come back.
Plus, for “further credit score,” the panelists counsel well being coverage tales they learn this week that they assume it’s best to learn, too:
Julie Rovner: The Lancet’s “Evaluating the Affect of Two A long time of USAID Interventions and Projecting the Results of Defunding on Mortality as much as 2030: A Retrospective Affect Analysis and Forecasting Evaluation,” by Daniella Medeiros Cavalcanti, et al.
Alice Miranda Ollstein: The New York Occasions’ “‘I Really feel Like I’ve Been Lied To’: When a Measles Outbreak Hits House,” by Eli Saslow.
Maya Goldman: Axios’ “New Docs Get Schooled in Previous Ailments as Vax Charges Fall,” by Tina Reed.
Sarah Karlin-Smith: Wired’s “Snake Venom, Urine, and a Quest to Reside Perpetually: Inside a Biohacking Convention Emboldened by MAHA,” by Will Bahr.
Additionally talked about on this week’s episode:
Credit
Francis Ying
Audio producer
Emmarie Huetteman
Editor
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