POLITICO's Pulse Check

With Congress on recess, POLITICO's reporters (and a bonus guest) take stock of three big stories in a grab-bag episode.

First, Rachana Pradhan leads a conversation on Utah's controversial changes to voter-approved Medicaid expansion (starts at the 1:20 mark). Next, Paul Demko offers an update on lawsuits over President Donald Trump's cancellation of ACA payments to insurers (starts at the 12:40 mark). Finally, Rodney Whitlock — a former top aide to Sen. Chuck Grassley — joins POLITICO's reporters to help preview next week's drug pricing hearings in the Senate (starts at the 24:00 mark).

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Utah's GOP leaders shrunk the state's voter-approved Medicaid expansion.

Rachana will sit down with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert on Friday morning at a POLITICO livestreamed event.

Multiple judges have now ruled that the United States owes billions of dollars to insurers after Trump cancelled certain ACA payments in 2017.

Seven leading pharma executives will face the Senate Finance Committee in a much-anticipated hearing next week.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"In our view, our jurisdiction is the world... Every time you watch the nightly news, [I] come up with at least three new ideas for hearings."

Rep. Diana DeGette, the Colorado Democrat leading oversight for the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, joins POLITICO's Dan Diamond to discuss why she prioritized hearings on family separations, vow an investigation of high insulin prices, reflect on her mentor John Dingell and more.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

DeGette's subcommittee held its first hearing last week, focused on HHS' role in family separations.

DeGette, alongside GOP Rep. Tom Reed, probed the high prices of insulin last year.

DeGette says she has questions about HHS' new fetal tissue policy.

Planned Parenthood's Leana Wen was on the podcast last week. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley also joined POLITICO in recent weeks to discuss his priorities.

Bob Carey, the former head of the HHS refugee office, joined the podcast last year to explain the refugee office and his concerns about the Trump administration's policies. Rep. Joe Kennedy, who's DeGette's vice-chair on the subcommittee, joined the podcast in 2017 to discuss his career and focus on health care.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"We are at a time when everything is at stake… If we don’t fight and we don’t lead the charge… then who is going to?”

The Trump administration has made no secret of its plans to roll back access to abortion. One of the key figures attempting to stop them: Leana Wen, a physician tapped to be Planned Parenthood's new leader last fall.

Wen joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to rebut President Trump's latest efforts to limit abortion access, explain her vision for Planned Parenthood and share reflections on her fast-rising career.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Wen was tapped in September 2018 as the new leader of Planned Parenthood — the first doctor to run the organization in decades.

BuzzFeed profiled Wen and her vision for Planned Parenthood, although Wen later took issue with the headline.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of the prominent anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, appeared on POLITICO's podcast last year. In a separate episode, POLITICO reporters traced the fight over abortion access.

(Interested in more perspectives on abortion? Check our archives for interviews with NARAL's Ilyse Hogue, Equity Forward's Mary Alice Carter and other prominent figures.)

Wen's four-year stint as Baltimore health commissioner attracted significant attention and was widely praised.

Baltimore's notorious for its health care disparities, which have contributed to broader unrest, as Dan wrote in 2015.

Wen and other city health commissioners sued the Trump administration over its abrupt cancellation of teen pregnancy prevention funds.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sen. Chuck Grassley says it's time for the secrecy in the pharma industry to end.

"The lack of transparency... is something that allows the shenanigans that we read about every day," the Senate Finance Committee chairman said, on the eve of his committee's first drug pricing hearing.

Grassley sat down with POLITICO's Dan Diamond to review his drug pricing plans, explain his approach to government oversight and talk through his priorities — including his famous use of Twitter.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Grassley in 1983 disregarded the Reagan administration to probe Pentagon cost overruns. The resulting hearing led to a TIME Magazine cover story.

Grassley in 2017 pushed back against the Trump administration's effort to limit oversight requests.

Grassley in 2018 co-sponsored the CREATES Act, which was intended to lower prescription drug prices.

Grassley has used social media to promote a variety of priorities — including his ongoing "corn watch."

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ashish Jha has spent years sounding the alarm about the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program — an Obamacare policy intended to encourage hospitals to provide better care. But Jha argues the program instead put patients at risk, and new data suggests he might be right.

Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, joins POLITICO's Dan Diamond to discuss the readmissions policy and the latest data. Jha also reflects on the Trump administration’s approach to global health and how his perspective has evolved over the past two years.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Jha’s February 2017 appearance on POLITICO “Pulse Check,” where he discussed his career and global health priorities.

A JAMA study in December found a link between the readmissions policy and rising mortality. Harvard researchers this month also concluded that Medicare has overstated the benefits of its readmissions policy.

Yale’s Harlan Krumholz helped develop the policy and has extensively defended it, including in this 2017 comment in JAMA.

Writing in the New York Times, Paula Span reviewed the latest arguments and data.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar has a unique perspective: Even as he oversees a policy to cut readmissions, Azar was readmitted to the hospital last year while suffering an intestinal infection.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why spend more than a year investigating hospital bills? Vox's Sarah Kliff says it all started with a $629 band-aid; now she's probing a hospital named after Facebook's founder.

Sarah — a senior policy correspondent, host of "The Impact" podcast and a former POLITICO reporter — sits down with Dan Diamond to discuss her billing series and the reaction, what she's learned about health care prices and how she thinks about policy journalism.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Sarah's story on Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and its unusual billing practices.

Sarah's ongoing series on hospital billing and the impact on patients.

Dan's story on efforts to regulate not-for-profit hospitals, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thousands of migrant families were separated at the border by the Trump administration last year. One of the HHS officials involved in putting them back together: Chris Meekins — a Trump appointee who normally helped oversee emergency preparedness, but was tapped as part of HHS' broader response.

Meekins, who left HHS last week, sat down with POLITICO's Dan Diamond to defend the HHS family reunification effort and discuss the Trump administration's broader missteps at the border (starts at the 1:30 mark), explain how HHS responds to natural disasters (21:00), review the biosecurity threats facing America (26:30) and more.

REFERENCED ON THE SHOW

How HHS got drawn into the family separation crisis.

The Trump administration has been criticized for its response to hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico.

The Strategic National Stockpile was shifted from CDC to HHS last year.

The Trump administration last fall announced a new biodefense strategy.

A U.S. doctor exposed to Ebola was brought to Nebraska last week.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a new year, and PULSE CHECK returns to look at what's ahead.

POLITICO's Adam Cancryn and Rachana Pradhan join Dan Diamond to discuss if the partial government shutdown will end soon (starts at the 1:45 mark), what's on Congress' to-do list (4:00) and how the Trump administration is putting its stamp on the states (16:45) — with a bonus conversation about the most influential Trump appointees (26:10).

REFERENCED ON THE SHOW

There’s no sign that the partial government shutdown will come to an end soon. More.

Adam and Alice Miranda Ollstein’s POLITICO Pro story on House Democrats’ new health strategy. (Behind the Pro firewall.) More.

Rachana’s story about thousands of Arkansas residents losing Medicaid coverage every month. More.

Arkansas health chief Cindy Gillespie and ex-CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt dueled on POLITICO's podcast about whether work requirements would harm Medicaid beneficiaries. More.

Atul Gawande’s October 2017 New Yorker article on whether health care should be a right. More.

Mississippi is quietly considering Medicaid expansion, POLITICO’s Paul Demko scooped. More.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an episode of POLITICO's "Nerdcast," guest host Dan Diamond joins congressional reporters Rachael Bade and Burgess Everett to review the partial government shutdown, how it's affecting the agencies and the possible path toward a deal.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may have heard about Texas' lawsuit over Obamacare, and a judge's recent decision that the ACA is unconstitutional. But have you heard about Maryland's counter-attack?

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh is locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration, and he joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to explain his fight to get the ACA declared as the law of the land. (Starts at the 1:20 mark.)

Then after the break, POLITICO executive editor for health care Joanne Kenen and reporter Paul Demko sit down with Dan to discuss the ongoing ACA legal battles, interpret the latest Obamacare enrollment numbers and explain why so many Americans are at risk after Friday's court ruling against the ACA. (Starts at the 14:20 mark.)

REFERENCED ON THE SHOW

Frosh in September sued the Trump administration over the ACA.

Paul and Alice Miranda Ollstein's review of ACA enrollment numbers.

Joanne and Alice's article on how many Americans benefit from the ACA, whether they know it or not.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices