What the Health? From KFF Health News

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, is eyeing an overhaul of two more key entities as part of his ongoing effort to reshape health policy. And President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week that would enable localities to force some homeless people into residential treatment.

Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Sara Rosenbaum, one of the nation’s leading experts on Medicaid, to mark Medicaid’s 60th anniversary this week.  

Visit our website for a transcript of this episode.

Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: KFF Health News’ “Cosmetic Surgeries Led to Disfiguring Injuries, Patients Allege,” by Fred Schulte. 

Anna Edney: The Washington Post’s “Morton Mintz, Post Reporter With a Muckraker Spirit, Dies at 103,” by Stefanie Dazio. 

Joanne Kenen: ScienceAlert’s “New Kind of Dental Floss Could Replace Vaccine Needles, Study Finds,” by David Nield. 

Shefali Luthra: The New Yorker’s “Mexico’s Molar City Could Transform My Smile. Did I Want It To?” by Burkhard Bilger. 

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Medicaid may have monopolized Washington’s attention lately, but big changes are coming to the Affordable Care Act as well.

Meanwhile, Americans are learning more about what’s in the big budget bill President Donald Trump signed into law this month, and polls suggest many of them don’t like what they see.

Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, and Julie Appleby of KFF Health News join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.

Also this week, Rovner interviews historian and University of North Carolina health policy professor Jonathan Oberlander to mark Medicare’s 60th anniversary.  

Visit our website for a transcript of this episode.

Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: KFF Health News’ “Republicans Call Medicaid Rife with Fraudsters. This Man Sees No Choice but To Break the Rules,” by Katheryn Houghton.  

Jessie Hellmann: Roll Call’s “Kennedy’s Mental Health Drug Skepticism Lands at FDA Panel,” by Ariel Cohen.  

Julie Appleby: NPR’s “Many Beauty Products Have Toxic Ingredients. Newly Proposed Bills Could Change That,” by Rachel Treisman.  

Alice Miranda Ollstein: The Associated Press’ “RFK Jr. Promoted a Food Company He Says Will Make Americans Healthy. Their Meals Are Ultraprocessed,” by Amanda Seitz and Jonel Aleccia.  

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The Senate narrowly approved the Trump administration’s request to claw back about $9 billion for humanitarian foreign aid projects and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — but refused to cut funding for the international AIDS/HIV program PEPFAR. The House has a Friday deadline to approve the rescissions bill, or the funding remains in place.

Meanwhile, a federal appeals court ruled that West Virginia can ban the abortion pill mifepristone, which could allow states to block other drugs approved by the FDA.

Shefali Luthra of The 19th, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. 

Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: The New York Times’ “UnitedHealth’s Campaign to Quiet Critics,” by David Enrich.  

Joanne Kenen: The New Yorker’s “Can A.I. Find Cures for Untreatable Diseases — Using Drugs We Already Have?” by Dhruv Khullar.  

Shefali Luthra: The New York Times’ “Trump Official Accused PEPFAR of Funding Abortions in Russia. It Wasn’t True,” by Apoorva Mandavilli.  

Sandhya Raman: The Nation’s “‘We’re Creating Miscarriages With Medicine’: Abortion Lessons from Sweden,” by Cecilia Nowell.  

Visit our website to read a transcript of this episode.

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President Donald Trump’s big budget bill became his big budget law on July 4, codifying about $1 trillion in cuts to the Medicaid program. But the law includes many less-publicized provisions that could reshape the way the nation pays for and receives health care. Meanwhile, at the Department of Health and Human Services, uncertainty reigns as both staff and outside recipients of federal funds face cuts.

Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, Tami Luhby of CNN, and Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Bloomberg News join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Julie Appleby, who reported the latest KFF Health News’ “Bill of the Month” feature, about some very pricey childhood immunizations.

Visit our website for a transcript of this episode.

Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: The New England Journal of Medicine’s “The Corporatization of U.S. Health Care — A New Perspective Series,” by Debra Malina, et al.  

Rachel Roubein: The AP’s “RFK Jr. Promoted a Food Company He Says Will Make Americans Healthy. Their Meals Are Ultraprocessed,” by Amanda Seitz and JoNel Aleccia.  

Rachel Cohrs Zhang: The Wall Street Journal’s “Prosecutors Question Doctors About UnitedHealth’s Medicare Billing Practices,” by Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews.  

Tami Luhby: The Washington Post’s “A New D.C. Hospital Grapples With Too Many Patients and Too Few Nurses,” by Jenna Portnoy.

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The House on Thursday moved to approve the largest-ever cuts to federal safety net programs, the last step before the measure goes to President Donald Trump’s desk. After the Senate very narrowly passed the bill, House GOP leaders ushered it past resistance from conservatives wary of adding trillions to the federal debt and moderates concerned about its cuts to Medicaid. Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has continued to pursue his anti-vaccine agenda, despite promises that he would not.

Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Maya Goldman of Axios, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. 

Visit our website for a transcript of this episode.

Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: The Lancet’s “Evaluating the Impact of Two Decades of USAID Interventions and Projecting the Effects of Defunding on Mortality up to 2030: A Retrospective Impact Evaluation and Forecasting Analysis,” by Daniella Medeiros Cavalcanti, et al. 

Alice Miranda Ollstein: The New York Times’ “‘I Feel Like I’ve Been Lied To’: When a Measles Outbreak Hits Home,” by Eli Saslow. 

Maya Goldman: Axios’ “New Docs Get Schooled in Old Diseases as Vax Rates Fall,” by Tina Reed. 

Sarah Karlin-Smith: Wired’s “Snake Venom, Urine, and a Quest to Live Forever: Inside a Biohacking Conference Emboldened by MAHA,” by Will Bahr. 

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In this special episode taped before a live audience at Aspen Ideas: Health, three former governors — one of whom also served as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — have a wide-ranging discussion about how state and federal officials can more effectively work together to improve Americans’ health. Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, a former governor of Kansas and HHS secretary under President Barack Obama; Republican Chris Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire; and Democrat Roy Cooper, former governor of North Carolina, join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner for this discussion.  

Visit our website to read a transcript of this episode.

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The Supreme Court this week said Tennessee may continue to enforce its law banning most types of gender-affirming care for minors. The ruling is likely to greenlight similar laws in two dozen states.

Meanwhile, the Senate is preparing to vote on a budget reconciliation bill that includes even deeper Medicaid cuts than the bill that barely passed the House in May.

Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. 

Visit our website for a transcript of this episode.

Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: The New York Times’ “The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security,” by Alexandra Berzon, Nicholas Nehamas, and Tara Siegel Bernard.  

Alice Miranda Ollstein: Wired’s “What Tear Gas and Rubber Bullets Do to the Human Body,” by Emily Mullin.  

Victoria Knight: The New York Times’ “They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling,” by Kashmir Hill.  

Sandhya Raman: North Carolina Health News and The Charlotte Ledger’s “Ambulance Companies Collect Millions by Seizing Wages, State Tax Refunds,” by Michelle Crouch.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week did something he had promised not to do: He fired every member of the scientific advisory committee that recommends which vaccines should be given to whom. And he replaced them, in some cases, with vaccine skeptics. Meanwhile, hundreds of employees of the National Institutes of Health sent an open letter of dissent to the agency’s director, Jay Bhattacharya, accusing the Trump administration of policies that “undermine the NIH mission, waste our public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.” 

Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, to discuss how the CBO works and why it’s so controversial.  

Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: Stat’s “Lawmakers Lobby Doctors To Keep Quiet — or Speak Up — on Medicaid Cuts in Trump’s Tax Bill,” by Daniel Payne.  

Joanne Kenen: ProPublica’s “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool To ‘Munch’ Veterans Affairs Contracts,” by Brandon Roberts, Vernal Coleman, and Eric Umansky.  

Anna Edney: KFF Health News’ “Two Patients Faced Chemo. The One Who Survived Demanded a Test To See if It Was Safe,” by Arthur Allen.  

Sarah Karlin-Smith: Wired’s “The Bleach Community Is Ready for RFK Jr. To Make Their Dreams Come True,” by David Gilbert.

Visit our website to read a transcript of this episode.

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The House’s gigantic tax-and-spending budget reconciliation bill has landed with a thud in the Senate, where lawmakers are divided in their criticism over whether it increases the deficit too much or cuts Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act too deeply. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the bill, if enacted, could increase the ranks of the uninsured by nearly 11 million people over a decade won’t make it an easy sell.

Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Arielle Zionts, who reported and wrote the latest “Bill of the Month” feature, about a Medicaid patient who had an out-of-state emergency.

Visit our website for a transcript of this episode.

Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read (or wrote) this week that they think you should read, too:

Julie Rovner: KFF Health News’ “Native Americans Hurt by Federal Health Cuts, Despite RFK Jr.’s Promises of Protection,” by Katheryn Houghton, Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez, and Arielle Zionts.

Alice Miranda Ollstein: Politico’s “‘They’re the Backbone’: Trump’s Targeting of Legal Immigrants Threatens Health Sector,” by Alice Miranda Ollstein.

Lauren Weber: The New York Times’ “Take the Quiz: Could You Manage as a Poor American?” by Emily Badger and Margot Sanger-Katz.

Jessie Hellmann: The New York Times’ “A DNA Technique Is Finding Women Who Left Their Babies for Dead,” by Isabelle Taft.

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This episode was taped live on Friday, May 30, at the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Los Angeles. Host Julie Rovner moderated a panel featuring Rachel Nuzum, senior vice president for policy at The Commonwealth Fund; Berenice Núñez Constant, senior vice president of government relations and civic engagement at AltaMed Health Services; and Anish Mahajan, chief deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The panelists discussed the national, state, and local implications of funding cuts made over the first 100 days of the second Trump administration and the potential fallout of reductions that have been proposed but not yet implemented. The panelists also took questions from health reporters in the audience.

Visit our website to read a transcript of this episode.

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