In this episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner and Alice Ollstein of Politico discuss a flurry of proposals from the Trump administration on prices Medicare pays for drugs and the Affordable Care Act.
The front-runner in the California governor’s race, known for his political audacity, has officially endorsed the controversial move to create one public insurance program for all Californians. Yet he also faces formidable challenges, and liberal critics fear he’ll retreat.
This gap in the 2010 health law means health insurance remains unaffordable for millions of Americans. For now, relief is hard to come by.
Candidates are charging toward midterm elections on a platform of single-payer and universal coverage rhetoric. Yet “Medicare-for-all” and single-payer mean different things to different people.
In this episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Rebecca Adams of CQ Roll Call, Stephanie Armour of The Wall Street Journal and Joanne Kenen of Politico discuss how protections for people with preexisting conditions have become a top issue in the elections, Trump administration efforts to make prescription drug prices more public and the start of Medicare’s annual open-enrollment period. Plus, Rovner interviews California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
Nearly three-quarters of voters say that health care is the most important issue for them, but fewer than half are hearing much from candidates about it, according to a poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
John Cox, California’s Republican candidate for governor, contends that policies on abortion, health insurance and health care access should be guided by the conservative ideals of free market competition and personal responsibility. He hasn’t offered specific policy positions on health care, except that government should largely stay out of it.
Fighting cancer often involves toxic therapies that can cause infertility. In the past couple of years, five states have moved to require that plans pay for services such as egg removal and storage.
Seema Verma, who heads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, tells private insurance officials that a push by some Democrats to expand Medicare would only increase troubles the program already faces.
The private health plans that are an alternative to government-run Medicare continue to grow despite the Affordable Care Act’s cuts of billions of dollars in funding.
