MAY 31, 2018
Kaiser Health News @jrovner
CQ Roll Call @RebeccaAdamsDC
Politico @JoanneKenen
The
Washington Post @pw_cunningham
After a five-year fight, the Virginia
legislature voted this week to expand the Medicaid program to an estimated
400,000 low-income residents who are not currently eligible for health
coverage. And New Jersey became the second state to impose a state-level
“individual mandate” requiring most residents to have health insurance or pay a
fine, following last year’s repeal of the federal penalty.
Meanwhile, Congress has quietly passed a major
bipartisan bill to overhaul and streamline health programs provided to the
nation’s veterans. The bill includes an expansion of veterans’ ability to get
private care paid for outside the Department of Veterans Affairs system, in
certain cases.
Also this week, an interview with Dr. Arthur
Kellerman, dean of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences,
the military’s medical school in Bethesda, Md.
This week’s panelists for KHN’s “What the
Health?” are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico,
Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post and Rebecca Adams of CQ Roll
Call.
Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:
·
Two key factors helped
push Medicaid expansion through the Virginia General Assembly. One was the
Trump administration’s endorsement of work requirements for nondisabled adults
and the other was the blue wave that shook the state last November when the House
of Delegates nearly turned from a safe Republican majority to Democratic
control.
·
New Jersey’s passage of a
mandate that state residents get coverage or face a penalty was surprising
because that provision was one of the most disliked parts of the federal
Affordable Care Act.
·
Even as Congress sent the
president the bill expanding VA programs, there is a widening debate in
Washington about whether the system should be privatized. That debate has
helped both create the vacancy at the top of the Department of Veterans Affairs
and complicated efforts to fill it.
Plus,
for “extra credit,” the panelists recommend their favorite health stories of
the week they think you should read, too.
Julie
Rovner: Bloomberg News’ “Is There a Doctor Aboard? Airlines
Often Hope Not,” by Ivan Levingston
Joanne
Kenen: The Atlantic’s “Ambien Doesn’t Cause Racism,”
by Olga Khazan
Rebecca
Adams: ProPublica’s “Why Your Health Insurer Doesn’t
Care About Your Big Bills,” by Marshall Allen
Paige
Winfield Cunningham: The New York Times’ “Origins of an Epidemic: Purdue
Pharma Knew Its Opioids Were Widely Abused,” by Barry Meier
Also:
The New Yorker’s “The Family That Built an Empire of
Pain,” by Patrick Radden Keefe
To hear
all our podcasts, click here.
And
subscribe to What the Health? on iTunes, Stitcher or Google Play.
No comments:
Post a Comment