Health Affairs' Jeff Byers is joined by Michael Chernew from Harvard Medical School to discuss the recently released National Health Expenditures Projections for 2024–33 from the Office of the Actuary (OACT) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Related Articles:

• National Health Expenditure Projections, 2024–33: Despite Insurance Coverage Declines, Health To Grow As Share Of GDP
• CMS National Health Expenditure Data

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Katie Keith of Georgetown Law and Deputy Editor Chris Fleming to the pod to discuss Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill and how this will affect Medicaid, Medicare, health savings accounts, rural hospitals, and more.

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Related Links:

• The 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' Now Law, Does Not Protect Rural Hospitals (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Rural Health Transformation Program Won’t Shield Hospitals And Other Rural Providers From OBBBA’s Fallout (Health Affairs Forefront)
• With Budget Reconciliation Bill Enacted, Health Care Changes Loom (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Congress Should Remove The Rare Disease Carve-Out From Medicare Drug Price Negotiation, Not Expand It (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Recent Experience Shows National Medicaid Work Requirements Would Create Enormous Administrative Inefficiencies (Health Affairs Forefront)

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Rachel Bonesteel of Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy to the pod to discuss her recent Forefront article focused on how ACO REACH enabled ACOs to participate in an advanced, global-risk, population-based payment model.

Related Articles:

• ACO REACH 2023 Performance Results Indicate A Pathway To Sustainable Accountable Care (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Opportunities To Enhance Design And Implementation Of ACO REACH’s Core Payment Model Design Elements (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Enhancing Design And Implementation Of ACO REACH’s Equity-Focused And Beneficiary Engagement Design Elements (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Future Of Accountable Care: Lessons Learned And Potential Paths Forward During A Time Of Transition (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Medicare Accountable Care Organizations In 2023: Large Savings With Increasing Value-Based Programmatic Competition (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Medicare ACOs In 2024: Increased Participation And Evolving Policy Impacts (Health Affairs Forefront)

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Nathan Hostert of The Center for Advancing Health Policy Through Research at Brown University to the pod to discuss a recent Forefront article on how states are utilizing hospital price caps to save money.

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Related Articles:

• How States Are Using Hospital Price Caps To Save Money (Health Affairs Forefront)
• Hospital Payment Cap Simulator (Brown University)
• Hospital Facility Prices Declined As A Result Of Oregon’s Hospital Payment Cap (Health Affairs)
• Hospital Payment Caps Could Save State Employee Health Plans Millions While Keeping Hospital Operating Margins Healthy (Health Affairs)
• How Massachusetts’s New Health Care Reform Takes Aim at Private Equity (Health Affairs Forefront)

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Rachel Sachs from Washington University in St. Louis and Deputy Editor Chris Fleming back to the pod to discuss CMS' final guidance for the latest round of the Medicare drug price negotiation program.

Related Articles:

• Administration Releases Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program Final Guidance For 2028 (Health Affairs Forefront)
• The Role of Combination Drugs in the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program (JAMA)
• Articulating policy options regarding implementation of the Medicare drug price negotiation program’s renegotiation provision (Brookings Institution)
• Eye on The IRA (Health Affairs)

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Allison Oakes, Chief Research Officer of Trilliant Health, to the pod to discuss Trilliant's recent health care trend report highlighting the health economy and breaking down the big trends, including price and affordability, demographics and lifestyle, care settings and therapies, and more.

Join us for this upcoming event:

• 11/5: Health Benefits in 2025: Insights from the KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey (INSIDER EXCLUSIVE)

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Related Articles:

• 2025 Trends Shaping the Health Economy (Trilliant Health)

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Stacie Dusetzina of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and David Simon of the University of Connecticut back to the pod to the current state of drug prices, how proposed tariffs may impact the pharmaceutical industry, that Pfizer deal, what consumers can expect if tariffs are added to prescription drugs, what exactly TrumpRx is, and more.

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Related Articles:

• Trump admin readies 'imminent' probe into other nations' drug pricing, raising new tariff threat: FT (FiercePharma)
• President Trump’s Executive Orders On Prescription Drug Prices: What The Evidence Says (Health Affairs Forefront)

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Senior Editor Kathleen Haddad back to the pod to take a look at the recent government shutdown, how health policy plays into it, HHS layoffs, the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, the ACA marketplace, and more.

Join us for this upcoming event:

• 11/5: Health Benefits in 2025: Insights from the KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey (INSIDER EXCLUSIVE)

Become an Insider today to get access to exclusive events and our upcoming third trend report.

Related Articles:

• Judge pauses shutdown layoffs at more than 30 federal agencies (NPR)
• Medicare backs off plan to pause doctor payments amid shutdown (STAT)
• White House: Shutdown layoffs will be ‘north of 10,000’ (Politico)

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Troyen A. Brennan of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and former CMO at CVS Health to the pod to discuss his new book, Wonderful and Broken: The Complex Reality of Primary Care in the United States. The conversation touches on themes within the book, including the current state of primary care, the diffusion of ideas in the health care space, the paradox of value-based care driven by Medicare Advantage, innovation in the Medicaid space, and what opportunities there could be to improve health care outcomes.

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers welcomes Dr. Yul Ejnes of Brown University Health to the pod to discuss a recent Forefront article he authored about the trend of deprofessionalization in the health care workforce and potential antidotes to address these issues.

Learn more about the topic of the health care workforce with a Health Affairs Insider trend report.

Join us for this upcoming Insider exclusive events:

• 10/15: Immigration Policies and Their Impact on Health Care

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Related Articles:

• Deprofessionalization: An Emerging Threat To The Physician Workforce (Health Affairs Forefront)
• The Health Care Workforce: A Challenge In Sustainability (Health Affairs)