President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address leaned heavily on health care issues. Biden took a victory lap for recent accomplishments like capping prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare. He also urged Congress to make permanent the boosted premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, and he sparred with Republicans on threats to cut Social Security and Medicare. Also this week, both sides in the abortion debate are bracing for a court decision out of Texas that could, at least temporarily, make the abortion pill mifepristone illegal nationwide. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Kate Baicker of the University of Chicago about a possible middle ground in the effort to get universal health insurance coverage.
Category: drug costs
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Congress Races the Clock
Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election in Georgia will give Democrats a clear-cut Senate majority for the first time in nearly a decade. Meanwhile, the current Congress has only days left to tackle major unfinished business on the health agenda, including fending off scheduled pay cuts for doctors and other health providers in the Medicare program. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.