POLITICO's Pulse Check

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) walks through his Medicare-X bill, what he'll ask the next HHS secretary and how he reacted to Tuesday night's victories by Democrats. In a bonus, Josh Peck of Get America Covered talks about ACA open enrollment.

"If I can leave behind a series of things that help reshape how we think about what happens at the end of your life, and what we really think about health care rights or where we're going with costs ... that's my shot, as long as I can do that."

Aaron Carroll is making a play to be America’s doctor, or at least the physician we need to bust medical myths. The pediatrician from Indianapolis is a best-selling author of medical advice books, a featured writer in the New York Times, and even a YouTube celebrity, with more than 250,000 subscribers to his channel. So how did he do it? In a bonus episode of PULSE CHECK, Aaron joins POLITICO’s Dan Diamond to discuss his path from blogger to New York Times contributor (Starts at the 1:35 mark), his critical analysis of Medicare-for-all proposals (11:20), his view as an Indiana-based doctor of that state’s health reforms, led by Mike Pence and Seema Verma (15:50), why Congress is failing on CHIP and what policies they should pursue (20:35), Aaron’s mythbusting on what you should, and shouldn’t eat(23:00) and more. We’d appreciate your help: Please share PULSE CHECK and rate us on your favorite podcast app! Have questions, suggestions or feedback? Email [email protected] or tweet him @ddiamond. Stories and podcasts referenced on the podcast: PULSE CHECK’s interview with Austin Frakt, Aaron’s writing partner: https://soundcloud.com/politico-pulsecheck/news-roundup-and-austin-frakt Aaron and Austin’s New York Times interactive tournament of the best health care systems in the world: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/best-health-care-system-country-bracket.html?\_r=0 Aaron discussing his new book, THE BAD FOOD BIBLE: HOW AND WHY TO EAT SINFULLY: https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/healthcare-triage-the-bad-food-bible/

North Carolina has been ground zero for some of 2017’s fiercest policy and political battles, including a legal fight between the Democratic governor and GOP legislature over Medicaid expansion. Enter Mandy Cohen, the state’s new HHS secretary, who says she’s a pragmatist and is focused on building bipartisan consensus for public health issues like the opioid epidemic.

Cohen, who was a top CMS official in the Obama administration, joined POLITICO’s Dan Diamond to discuss what a state-level HHS secretary does (starts at the 1:45 mark), how she balances a state's pull-push relationship with the federal government (9:00), how her boss’s fight for Medicaid expansion has and hasn’t affected her job (12:40), where she sees opportunity for bipartisan public health successes (19:00), where North Carolina stands ahead of ACA open enrollment (26:30), and how she built her career to become a state HHS secretary before she turned 40 years old (30:45). Then after the break, POLITICO’s Paul Demko joins Dan to discuss Obamacare’s looming open enrollment and what he learned from his reporting trip to Iowa, where only one insurer is left in the state’s ACA individual insurance market. (Starts at the 35:20 mark.)

We’d appreciate your help: Please share PULSE CHECK and rate us on your favorite podcast app! Have questions, suggestions or feedback? Email [email protected] or tweet him @ddiamond.

The Washington conversation has been focused on the fate of the ACA and whether insurers are planning to stick around. So for this episode of PULSE CHECK, we took the conversation outside the Beltway to hear from Mario Schlosser, CEO of Oscar Health — the insurance startup that’s gotten a lot of buzz and is heading into more Obamacare markets this year. Mario caught up with POLITICO’s Dan Diamond last month to discuss Oscar's evolving strategy (starts at the 2:00 mark), why Oscar is moving into new Obamacare markets (8:05), the company's much-hyped founding story (16:00) and some of the unwanted attention on Oscar, including the insurer's ties to Jared Kushner (26:10). We’d appreciate your help: Please share PULSE CHECK and rate us on your favorite podcast app! Have questions, suggestions or feedback? Email [email protected].

The influential health care leader weighs in on Obamacare repeal, hospitals' role as community anchors and the future of his organization.

The political fights over U.S. health policy often pale next to the world's health care challenges — and Sue Desmond-Hellmann would know. The doctor-turned-CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is on the front lines of the global public health battle, as her organization tackles challenges like eradicating polio and preventing maternal and newborn deaths. Sue caught up with POLITICO’s Dan Diamond last week to discuss if the Trump administration’s putting global progress at risk (starts at the 2:45 mark), the Gates Foundation’s work around the globe, the public health priorities that are being overlooked, and the role of philanthropy in solving the world’s crises. We’d appreciate your help: Please share PULSE CHECK and rate us on your favorite podcast app! Have questions, suggestions or feedback? Email [email protected].

Here’s how fast things are moving in health care: Mike Leavitt, who ran HHS under President George W. Bush, came to Washington 10 days ago to testify about the need for bipartisan health reforms — and since that day, when he sat down with POLITICO's Dan Diamond, the Senate’s bipartisan health push has collapsed and the GOP’s latest Obamacare repeal bill is on life support. Although the conversation is slightly dated, the former HHS secretary is a must-listen voice on health care issues, and he shares his perspective on possible health reforms (starts at the 16:30 mark), his pessimism on Medicare-for-all (22:00), his concerns about the Affordable Care Act (25:15) and his post-government work as head of Leavitt Partners (32:30). But first, POLITICO’s Rachana Pradhan and Jennifer Haberkorn join PULSE CHECK to break down the wild week in health care (starts at the 2:15 mark) and Rachana and Dan’s reporting about HHS Secretary Tom Price’s charter jets — an investigation that made this podcast so delayed (starts at 8:55 mark). We’d appreciate your help: Please share PULSE CHECK and rate us on your favorite podcast app! Have questions, suggestions or feedback? Email [email protected]. Stories referenced on the podcast: Jen's story with colleagues on Sen. John McCain's decision to oppose ACA repeal again: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/22/mccain-to-oppose-graham-cassidy-likely-sinking-obamacare-repeal-243028?lo=ap\_a1 Dan and Rachana’s investigation into Tom Price's use of charter planes: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/19/tom-price-chartered-planes-flights-242908 Rachana and Dan's follow-up on Price's 24 charter flights since May: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/21/tom-price-private-charter-plane-flights-242989

Progressives have spent 2017 rethinking, regrouping and — in some cases — re-litigating what it means to be a Democrat after last year's shocking presidential loss. And two health care issues, abortion rights and single-payer, have been at the center of this year's party debates. One person leading those conversations is Ilyse Hogue, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to explain the mission of her pro-abortion advocacy organization (starts at the 2:00 mark), whether Donald Trump has actually been a boon to progressives (7:20), how anti-abortion Republicans are targeting the judiciary (14:20), whether Democrats should only vote for candidates who support abortion rights and Medicare-for-all (17:20), her own career path (25:00) and why she talked about her own abortion on national TV at the Democratic National Convention (29:25). We’d appreciate your help: Please share PULSE CHECK and rate us on your favorite podcast app! Have questions, suggestions or feedback? Email [email protected] or tweet him @ddiamond.

PULSE CHECK is back from August recess with a closer look at how health care politics and policy can influence spending — and sometimes not for the better. But first, Jen Haberkorn and Adam Cancryn rejoin PULSE CHECK to discuss the competing approaches to Obamacare in the Senate, whether either plan has a chance at succeeding, and if the GOP still wants to fight to repeal the law (starts at the 1:23 mark). After the break, Yale economist Zack Cooper discusses his team's first-of-its-kind work into the connection between politics, hospital behavior and health care spending, and how one last-minute addition to a major piece of Medicare legislation boosted hospital payments — and politicians' campaign contributions (starts at the 22:30 mark). We’d appreciate your help: Please share PULSE CHECK and rate us on your favorite podcast app! Have questions, suggestions or feedback? Email [email protected] or tweet him @ddiamond.