The Host
It’s been a troublesome week for Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Along with Kennedy having surgical procedure to restore a torn rotator cuff, personnel points proceed to plague the division: The nominee to develop into surgeon common, an ally of Kennedy’s, could lack the votes for Senate affirmation. The controversial head of the Meals and Drug Administration’s vaccine middle was compelled to resign. And a brand new survey finds People have much less belief in HHS leaders now than they did throughout the pandemic.
In the meantime, the Trump administration continues its crackdown over claims of rampant well being care fraud. Along with concentrating on the Medicaid packages in states led by Democratic governors, the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers can be taking intention at beforehand sacrosanct Medicare Benefit plans.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Well being Information, Anna Edney of Bloomberg Information, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg College of Public Well being and Politico Journal, and Shefali Luthra of The nineteenth.
Among the many takeaways from this week’s episode:
- People really feel extra assured in profession scientists at federal well being businesses than within the businesses’ leaders, in line with a brand new survey from the Annenberg Public Coverage Heart on the College of Pennsylvania. But the survey additionally sheds extra mild on the erosion of belief in public well being officers and scientific analysis.
- The FDA’s vaccine chief, Vinay Prasad, is leaving — once more. Prasad was a critic of the company earlier than he joined it, and his tenure has been formed by the identical angle, affecting profession officers’ morale and the company’s interactions with outdoors firms.
- The Trump administration has prolonged its fraud crackdown marketing campaign into Medicare Benefit plans. The privately run various to conventional Medicare protection has been a GOP darling from the get-go. But President Donald Trump is nudging the get together away from its pro-business stance on non-public insurance coverage, arguing the federal government ought to give cash to sufferers relatively than insurers — a justification for insurance policies undermining the Inexpensive Care Act.
- And Wyoming grew to become the most recent state to enact a six-week abortion ban, a transfer that’s being challenged in court docket. The event factors to the truth that whereas federal policymaking on abortion has largely stalled, the difficulty remains to be very a lot in play within the states as abortion opponents maintain pushing again on entry to the process.
Additionally this week, Rovner interviews Andy Schneider of Georgetown College in regards to the Trump administration’s crackdown on what it alleges is rampant Medicaid fraud in Democratic-led states.
Plus, for “additional credit score” the panelists recommend well being coverage tales they learn this week that they suppose it is best to learn, too:
Julie Rovner: The Marshall Mission’s “The Harrowing Journey House for Households Leaving Immigration Detention,” by Shannon Heffernan, Jesse Bogan, and Anna Flagg.
Anna Edney: The Wall Road Journal’s “The Increase in Autism Remedy Is Medicaid’s Quickest-Rising Jackpot,” by Christopher Weaver, Tom McGinty, and Anna Wilde Mathews.
Shefali Luthra: The New York Occasions’ “States Transfer To Restrict Entry to H.I.V. Remedy,” by Apoorva Mandavilli.
Joanne From: The Idaho Capital Solar’s “988 Ended His Name. Now an Idaho Teen Is Pushing for a Repair to State’s Parental Consent Regulation,” by Laura Guido.
Additionally talked about on this week’s podcast:
Click on right here to search out all our podcasts.
And subscribe to “What the Well being? From KFF Well being Information” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app, YouTube, Pocket Castsor wherever you take heed to podcasts.
