{"id":2461,"date":"2024-02-27T16:07:15","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T16:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2461"},"modified":"2024-02-27T16:07:16","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T16:07:16","slug":"alabama-court-rules-embryos-are-children-what-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2461","title":{"rendered":"Alabama Court Rules Embryos Are Children. What Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"republish-content\">\n<h3>\n\t\tThe Host\t<\/h3>\n<p>\tJulie Rovner<br \/>\n\tKFF Health News<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jrovner\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t@jrovner\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/author\/julie-rovner\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tRead Julie&#8217;s stories.\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tJulie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News\u2019 weekly health policy news podcast, \u201cWhat the Health?\u201d A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book \u201cHealth Care Politics and Policy A to Z,\u201d now in its third edition.\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The Alabama Supreme Court\u2019s groundbreaking ruling last week that frozen embryos have legal rights as people has touched off a national debate about the potential fallout of the \u201cpersonhood\u201d movement. Already the University of Alabama-Birmingham has paused its in vitro fertilization program while it determines the ongoing legality of a process that has become increasingly common for those wishing to start a family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump is reportedly leaning toward endorsing a national, 16-week abortion ban. At the same time, former aides are planning a long agenda of reproductive health restrictions should Trump win a second term.<\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, Rachana Pradhan of KFF Health News, and Victoria Knight of Axios.<\/p>\n<h3>\n\t\tPanelists\t<\/h3>\n<p>\tVictoria Knight<br \/>\n\tAxios<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/victoriaregisk\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t@victoriaregisk\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/authors\/vknight\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tRead Victoria&#8217;s stories.\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\tRachana Pradhan<br \/>\n\tKFF Health News<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rachanadpradhan\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t@rachanadpradhan\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/author\/rachana-pradhan\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tRead Rachana&#8217;s stories.\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\tLauren Weber<br \/>\n\tThe Washington Post<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LaurenWeberHP\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t@LaurenWeberHP\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/people\/lauren-weber\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tRead Lauren&#8217;s stories.\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Among the takeaways from this week\u2019s episode:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Alabama Supreme Court\u2019s decision on embryonic personhood could have wide-ranging implications beyond reproductive health care, with potential implications for tax deductions, child support payments, criminal law, and much more.<\/li>\n<li>Donald Trump is considering a national abortion ban at 16 weeks of gestation, according to recent reports. It is unclear whether such a ban would go far enough to please his conservative supporters, but it would be far enough to give Democrats ammunition to campaign on it. And some are looking into using a 19th-century anti-smut law, the Comstock Act, to implement a national ban under a new Trump presidency \u2014 no action from Congress necessary.<\/li>\n<li>New <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/catholic-hospitals-affiliates-ethical-religious-directives-reproductive-care\/\">reporting from KFF Health News<\/a> draws on many interviews with clinicians at Catholic hospitals about how the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s directives dictate the care they may offer patients, especially in reproductive health. It also draws attention to the vast number of religiously affiliated hospitals and the fact that, for many women, a Catholic hospital may be their only option.<\/li>\n<li>Questions about President Joe Biden\u2019s cognitive health are drawing attention to ageism in politics \u2014 as well as in American life, with fewer people taking precautions against the covid-19 virus even as it remains a serious threat to vulnerable people, especially the elderly. The mental fitness of the nation\u2019s leaders is a valid, relevant question for many voters, though the questions are also fueled by frustration with a political system in which many offices are held by older people who have been around a long time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Plus, for \u201cextra credit\u201d the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Julie Rovner:<\/strong> Stat\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2024\/02\/20\/cms-medicare-medicaid-research-fees-data-security\/\">New CMS Rules Will Throttle Access Researchers Need to Medicare, Medicaid Data<\/a>,\u201d by Rachel M. Werner.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lauren Weber:<\/strong> The Washington Post\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2024\/02\/20\/kratom-deaths\/?utm_campaign=wp_the_health_202&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;wpisrc=nl_health202\">They Take Kratom to Ease Pain or Anxiety. Sometimes, Death Follows<\/a>,\u201d by David Ovalle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rachana Pradhan:<\/strong> Politico\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/02\/20\/donald-trump-medicaid-states-00141397\">Red States Hopeful for a 2nd Trump Term Prepare to Curtail Medicaid<\/a>,\u201d by Megan Messerly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Victoria Knight:<\/strong> ProPublica\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/the-year-after-a-denied-abortion\/?utm_source=sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&amp;utm_content=feature\">The Year After a Denied Abortion<\/a>,\u201d by Stacy Kranitz and Kavitha Surana.<\/p>\n<p>Also mentioned on this week\u2019s podcast:<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tclick to open the transcript\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tTranscript: Alabama Court Rules Embryos Are Children. What Now?\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><strong>KFF Health News\u2019 \u2018What the Health?\u2019<\/strong><strong>Episode Title: <\/strong>Alabama Court Rules Embryos Are Children. What Now?<strong>Episode Number:<\/strong> 335<strong>Published:<\/strong> Feb. 22,2024<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>[Editor\u2019s note:<\/em><\/strong><em> This transcript was generated using both transcription software and a human\u2019s light touch. It has been edited for style and clarity.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Julie Rovner:<\/strong> Hello, and welcome back to \u201cWhat the Health?\u201d I\u2019m Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News, and I\u2019m joined by some of the best and smartest health reporters in Washington. We\u2019re taping this week on Thursday, Feb. 22, at 10 a.m. As always, news happens fast, and things might have changed by the time you hear this, so here we go. We <a>are joined<\/a> today via video conference by Lauren Weber of The Washington Post.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lauren Weber:<\/strong> Hello, hello.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Victoria Knight of Axios.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Victoria Knight:<\/strong> Hello, everyone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> And my KFF Health News colleague Rachana Pradhan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rachana Pradhan:<\/strong> Hi, there. Good to be back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Congress is out this week, but there is still tons of news, so we will get right to it. We\u2019re going to start with abortion because there is lots of news there. The biggest is out of Alabama, where the state Supreme Court ruled last week that frozen embryos created for IVF [in vitro fertilization] are legally children and that those who destroy them can be held liable. In fact, the justices called the embryos \u201cextrauterine children,\u201d which, in covering this issue for 40 years, I never knew was a thing. There are lots of layers to this, but let\u2019s start with the immediate, what it could mean to those seeking to get pregnant using IVF. We\u2019ve already heard that the University of Alabama\u2019s IVF clinic has ceased operations until they can figure out what this means.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> I think that that is the immediate fallout right now. We\u2019ve seen Alabama\u2019s arguably flagship university saying that they are going to halt. And I believe some of the coverage that I saw, there was even a woman who was about to start a cycle or was literally about to have embryos implanted and had to encounter that extremely jarring development. Beyond the immediate, and of course, Julie, I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll talk about this, a bit about the personhood movement and fetal rights movement in general, but a lot of the country might say, \u201cOh, well, it\u2019s Alabama. It\u2019s only Alabama.\u201d But as we know it, it really just takes one state, it seems like these days, to open the floodgates for things that might actually take hold much more broadly across the country. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> It\u2019s funny, the first big personhood push I covered was in 2011 in Mississippi, so next door to Alabama, <a>very<\/a> conservative state, where everybody assumed it was going to win. And one of the things that the opposition said is that this would ban most forms of birth control and IVF, and it got voted down in Mississippi. So here we are, what, 13 years later. But I mean, I think people don\u2019t quite appreciate how IVF works is that doctors harvest as many eggs as they can and basically create embryos. Because for every embryo that results in a successful pregnancy, there are usually many that don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>And of course, couples who are trying to have babies using IVF tend to have more embryos than they might need, and, generally, those embryos are destroyed or donated to research, or, in some cases \u2014 I actually went back and looked this up \u2014 in the early 2000s there was a push, and it\u2019s still there, there\u2019s an adoption agency that will let you adopt out your unused embryos for someone else to carry to term. And apparently, all of this, I guess maybe not the adoption, but all the rest of this could theoretically become illegal under this Alabama Supreme Court ruling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> And one thing I just want to say, too, Julie, piggybacking on that point too is not just in each cycle that someone goes through with IVF \u2014 as you said, there are multiple embryos \u2014 but it often takes two people who want to start a family, it often takes multiple IVF cycles to have a successful pregnancy from that. It\u2019s not like it\u2019s a one-time shot, it usually takes a long time. And <a>so<\/a> you\u2019re really talking about a lot of embryos, not just a one-and-done situation.<\/p>\n<p><a><strong>Rovner:<\/strong><\/a> And every cycle is really expensive. I know lots of people who have both successfully and unsuccessfully had babies using IVF and it\u2019s traumatic. The drugs that are used to stimulate the extra eggs for the woman are basically rough, and it costs a lot of <a>money<\/a>, and it doesn\u2019t always work. It seems odd to me that the pro-life movement has gotten to the point where they are stopping people who want to get pregnant and have children from getting pregnant and having children. But I guess that is the outflow of this. Lauren, you wanted to add something?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weber:<\/strong> Yeah, I just wanted to chime in on that. <a>I mean, I think we\u2019re really going to see a lot of potential political ramifications from this.<\/a> I mean, after this news came down, and just to <a>put<\/a> in context, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] reported in 2021 that there were 91,906 births via IVF. So that\u2019s almost 92,000 families in 2021 alone. You have a political constituency of hundreds of thousands of parents across the U.S. that feel very strongly about this because they have received children that they paid a lot of money for and worked very hard to get. And it was interesting after this news came down \u2014 I will admit, I follow a lot of preppy Southern influencers who are very apolitical and if <a>anything<\/a> conservative, who all were very aggressively saying, \u201cThe only reason I could have my children is through this. <a>We have to make a stand.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I mean, these are not political people. These are people that are \u2014 you could even argue, veering into tradwife [traditional wife] territory in terms of social media. I think we\u2019re really going to see some political ramifications from this that already are reflected in what Donald Trump has recently been reported as feeling about how abortion limits could cost him voters. I do wonder if IVF limits could really cause quite an uproar for conservative candidates. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, Nikki Haley\u2019s already gotten caught up in this. She\u2019s very pro-life. <a>On the other hand, she had one of her children using IVF, which she\u2019s been pretty frank about.<\/a> She, of course, got asked about this yesterday and her eyes had the deer-in-the-headlights look, and she said, \u201cWell, embryos are children,\u201d and it\u2019s like, \u201cWell, then what about your extra embryos?\u201d Which I guess nobody asked about. <a>But yeah, I mean clearly you don\u2019t have to be a liberal to use IVF to have babies, and I think you\u2019re absolutely right.<\/a> I want to expand this though, because the ruling was based on this 2018 constitutional amendment approved by voters in Alabama that made it state policy to, quote, \u201cRecognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I should point out that this 2018 amendment did not directly try to create fetal personhood in the way that several states tried \u2014 and, as I mentioned, failed \u2014 in the 2010s, yet that\u2019s how the Alabama Supreme Court interpreted it. Now, anti-abortion advocates in other states, Rachana, you mentioned this, are already trying to use this decision to apply to abortion bans and court cases there. What are the implications of declaring someone a person <a>at the moment<\/a> of fertilization? It obviously goes beyond just IVF, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Well, and I think you mentioned already, birth control is also the next step as well. Which basically they don\u2019t want you to have a device that will stop a sperm from reaching an egg. And so I think that could have huge ramifications as well. So many young women across the U.S. use IUDs or other types of birth control. I know that\u2019s one application that people are concerned about. I don\u2019t know if there are others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yeah, I\u2019ve seen things like, if you\u2019re pregnant, can you now drive in the HOV [high-occupancy vehicle] lane because you have another person?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s one of the more benign, maybe potential impacts of this. But I mean, if an embryo is a child, I mean it would affect everything from, I think, criminal laws affecting murder or any other \u2026 you could see there being criminal law impacts there. I think also, as far as child support, domestic laws, involving families, what would you \u2014 presumably maybe not everyone that I imagine who are turning to fertility treatments to start a family or to grow a family may not have a situation where there are two partners involved in that decision. I think it could affect everything, frankly. So much of our tax estate laws are impacted by whether people have children or not, and so \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> And whether those children have been born yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> \u2026 tax deductions, can you claim an embryo as a dependent? I mean, it would affect everything. <a>So<\/a> I think they\u2019re very wide, sweeping ramifications beyond the unfortunate consequences that some people might face, as Lauren said, which is that they\u2019re just trying to start a family and now that\u2019s being jeopardized.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> I think Georgia already has a law that you can take a tax deduction if you\u2019re pregnant. I have been wondering, what happens to birthdays? Do they cease to mean anything? It completely turns on its head the way we think about people and humans, and I mean obviously they say, \u201cWell, yeah, of course it is a separate being from the moment of fertilization, but that doesn\u2019t make it a legal person.\u201d And I think that\u2019s what this debate is about. I did notice in Alabama \u2014 of course, what happened, what prompted this case was that some patient in a hospital got into the lab where the frozen embryos were kept and took some out and literally just dropped them on the floor and broke the vial that they were in. And the question is whether the families who belong to those embryos could sue for some kind of recourse, but it would not be considered murder because, under Alabama\u2019s statutes, it <a>has to<\/a> be a child in utero.<\/p>\n<p>And obviously frozen embryos are not yet in utero, they\u2019re in a freezer somewhere. In that sense it might not be murder, but it could become \u2014 I mean, this is something that I think people have been thinking about and talking about obviously for many years, and you wonder if this is just the beginning of we\u2019re going to see how far this can go, particularly in some of the more conservative states. Well, meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/16\/us\/politics\/trump-abortion-ban.html?searchResultPosition=3\">The New York Times reported<\/a> last week that former President Trump, who\u2019s literally been on just about every side of the abortion debate over the years, is leaning towards supporting a 16-week ban \u2014 in part, according to the story, because it\u2019s a round number. Trump, of course, was a supporter of abortion rights until he started running for president as a Republican.<\/p>\n<p>And, in winning the endorsement of skeptical anti-abortion groups in 2016, promised to appoint only anti-abortion judges and to reimpose government restrictions from previous Republican administrations. He did that and more, appointing the three Supreme Court justices who enabled the overturn of <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>. But more recently, he\u2019s seen the political backlash over that ruling and the number of states that have voted for abortion rights, including some <a>fairly red<\/a> states, and he\u2019s been warning Republicans not to emphasize the issue. So why would he fail to follow his own advice now, particularly if it would animate voters in swing states? He keeps saying he\u2019s not in the primaries anymore, that he\u2019s basically running a general-election campaign.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> I mean, I think to me, it seems like he\u2019s clearly trying to thread the needle here. He knows some of the more social conservative of his supporters want him to do something about abortion. They want him to take a stand. And <a>so<\/a> he decided on allegedly <a>16 weeks<\/a>, four months, which is less strict than some states. We saw Florida was <a>10 weeks<\/a>. And then some other states \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> I think Florida is six weeks now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Oh, sorry, six weeks. OK.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Right. Pending a court decision.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Yeah. And then other states, in Tennessee, complete abortion ban with little room for exceptions. So <a>16 weeks<\/a> is longer than some other states have <a>enacted that are<\/a> stricter. <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> was about <a>24 weeks<\/a>. So to me, it seems like he\u2019s trying to find some middle ground to try to appease those social conservatives, but not be too strict.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Although, I mean, one of the things that a 16-week ban would not do is protect all the women that we\u2019ve been reading about who are with wanted pregnancies, who have things go wrong at 19 or 20 or <a>21 weeks<\/a>, which are before viability but after 16 weeks. Well, unless they had \u2014 he does say he wants exceptions, and as we know, as we\u2019ve talked about every week for the last six months, those exceptions, the devil is in the details and they have not been usable in a lot of states. But I\u2019m interested in why Trump, after saying he didn\u2019t want to wade into this, is now wading into this. Lauren, you wanted to add something?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weber:<\/strong> Yeah, I wanted to echo your point because I think it\u2019s important to note that 16 weeks is not based, it seems like, on any scientific reason. It sounds like to me, from what I understand from what\u2019s out there, that 20 weeks is more when you can actually see if there\u2019s heart abnormalities and other issues. So it sounds like from the reporting the Times did, was that he felt like 16 weeks was good as, \u00a0quote, \u201cIt was a round number.\u201d So this isn\u2019t exactly, these weak timing of bans, as I\u2019m sure we\u2019ve discussed with this podcast, are not necessarily tied towards scientific development of where the fetus is. So I think that\u2019s an important thing to note.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yes. Rachana.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> I mean, I think, and we\u2019ve talked about this, but it\u2019s the perennial danger in weighing in on any limit, and certainly a national limit, but any limit at all, is that 16 weeks, of course as the anti-abortion movement and I think many more people know now, the CDC data shows that the vast majority of abortions annually occur before that point in pregnancy. And so there are, of course, some anti-abortion groups that are trying to thread the needle and back a more middle-ground approach such as this one, 15 weeks, 16 weeks, banning it after that point. But for many, it\u2019s certainly not anywhere good enough. And I think if you\u2019re going to try to motivate your conservative base, I still have a lot of questions about whether they would find that acceptable. And I think it depends on how they message it, honestly.<\/p>\n<p>If they say, \u201cThis is the best we can do right now and we\u2019re trying,\u201d that might win over some voters. But on the flip side, it\u2019s still enough for Democrats to be able to run with it and say any national ban obviously is unacceptable to them, but it gives them enough ammunition, I think, to still say that former President Trump wants to take your rights away. And I think, as Lauren noted, genetic testing and things these days of course can happen and does happen <a>before<\/a> <a>16 weeks<\/a>. So there might be some sense of <a>whether there might be,<\/a> your child has a lethal chromosomal disorder or something like that, that might make the pregnancy not viable. But the big scan that happens about midway through pregnancy is around 20 weeks, and that\u2019s often when you, unfortunately, some people find out that there are things that would make it very difficult for their baby to survive so \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Well, it seems that no matter what Trump does or says he will do if he\u2019s elected in November, it\u2019s clear that people close to him, including former officials, are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/17\/us\/politics\/trump-allies-abortion-restrictions.html?searchResultPosition=1\">gearing up for a second term<\/a> that could go way further than even his very anti-abortion first term. According to Politico, a plan is underway for Trump to govern as a, quote, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/02\/20\/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086\">Christian nationalist nation<\/a>,\u201d which could mean not just banning abortion, but, as Victoria pointed out, contraception, too, or many forms of contraception. A separate planning group being run out of the Heritage Foundation is also developing far-reaching plans about women\u2019s reproductive health, including enforcement of the long-dormant 19th century Comstock Act, which we have talked about here many times before. But someone please remind us what the Comstock Act is and what it could mean.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weber:<\/strong> I feel like you\u2019re the expert on this. I feel like you should explain it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Oh boy. I don\u2019t want to be <a>the<\/a> expert on the Comstock Act, but I guess I\u2019ve become it. <a>It\u2019s actually my favorite tidbit about the Comstock Act is that it is not named after a congressman.<\/a> It is named after basically an anti-smut crusader named Anthony Comstock in the late 1800s. And it bans the mailing of, I believe the phrase is \u201clewd or obscene\u201d information, which in the late 1880s included ways to prevent pregnancy, but certainly also abortion. When the Supreme Court basically ruled that contraception was legal, which did not happen until the late 1960s \u2014 and early 1970s, actually \u2014, the Comstock Act sort of ceased to be. And obviously then <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>, it ceased to be.<\/p>\n<p>But it is still in the books. It\u2019s never been officially repealed, and there\u2019s been a lot of chatter in anti-abortion movements about starting to enforce it again, which could certainly <a>stop<\/a> if nothing else, the distribution of the abortion pill in its tracks. And also it\u2019s anything using the mail. So it could not just be the abortion pill, but anything that doctors use to perform abortions or to make surgical equipment \u2014 it seems that using Comstock, you could implement a national ban without ever having to worry about Congress doing anything. And that seems to be the goal here, is to do as much as they can without even having to involve Congress. Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> Julie, I\u2019m waiting for the phrase \u201canti-smut crusader\u201d to end up on a campaign sign or bumper sticker, honestly. I feel like we might see it. I don\u2019t think this election has gotten nearly weird enough yet. So we still have nine months to go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yeah. <a>I\u2019m learning way more about the Comstock Act than I really ever wanted to know.<\/a> But meanwhile, <a>Rachana, it<\/a> does not take state or federal action to restrict access to reproductive health care. You have a story this week about the continuing expansion of Catholic hospitals and what that means for reproductive health care. Tell us what you found.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> Well, yes, I would love to talk about our story. So myself and my colleague Hannah Recht, we started reporting the story, just for background, before the Supreme Court\u2019s <em>Dobbs<\/em> decision, obviously anticipating that that is what was going to happen. And our story really digs into, based on ample interviews with clinicians, other academic experts, reading lots of documents about what the ethical and religious <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/catholic-hospitals-affiliates-ethical-religious-directives-reproductive-care\/\">directives for Catholic health<\/a> care services, which is what all, any health facility, a hospital, a physician\u2019s office, anything that deems itself Catholic, has to abide by these directives for care, and they follow church teaching. <a>Which we<\/a> were talking about fertility treatments and IVF earlier actually, so in vitro fertilization is also something that the Catholic Church teaches is immoral. <a>And so that\u2019s actually something that they oppose, which many people may not know that.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But other things that the ERDs [ethical and religious directives] so to speak, impact are access to contraception, access to surgeries that would permanently prevent pregnancy. So for women that would be removing or cinching your fallopian tubes, but also, for men, vasectomies. And then, of course, anything that constitutes what they would call a direct abortion. And that affects everything from care for ectopic pregnancies, how you can treat them, to managing miscarriages. The lead story or anecdote in our story is about a nurse midwife who I spoke with, who used to work at a Catholic hospital in Maryland and talked to me about, relayed this anecdote about, a patient who was about 19 or 20 weeks pregnant and had her water break prematurely.<\/p>\n<p>At that point, her fetus was not <a>viable<\/a> and that patient did not want to continue her pregnancy, but the medical staff there, what they would\u2019ve done is induce labor with the intent of terminating the pregnancy. And they were unable to do that because of ERDs. And so, we really wanted to look at it systemically, too. So we looked at that combined with state laws that protect, shield hospitals from liability when they oppose providing things like abortions or even sterilization procedures on religious grounds. And included fresh new data analysis on how many women around the country live either nearby to a Catholic hospital or only have Catholic hospitals nearby. So we thought it was important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> That\u2019s a little bit of the lead because there\u2019s been so much takeover of hospitals by Catholic entities over the last, really, decade and a half or so, that women who often had a choice of Catholic hospital or not Catholic hospital don\u2019t anymore. That Catholic hospital may be the only hospital anywhere around.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> Right and if people criticize the story, which we\u2019ve gotten some criticism over it, one of the refrains we\u2019ll hear is, \u201cWell, just go to a different hospital.\u201d Well, we don\u2019t live in a country where you can just pick any hospital you want to go to \u2014 even when you have a choice, insurance will dictate what\u2019s in-network versus what\u2019s not. And honestly, people just don\u2019t know. They don\u2019t know that a hospital has a religious affiliation at all, let alone that that religious affiliation could impact the care that you would receive. And so there\u2019s been research done over the years showing the percentage of hospital beds that are controlled by Catholic systems, et cetera, but Hannah and I both felt strongly that that\u2019s a useful metric to a point, but beds is not relatable to a human being. So we really wanted to boil it down to people and how many people we\u2019re talking about who do not have other options nearby. How many births occur in Catholic hospitals so that you know those people do not have access to certain care if they deliver at these hospitals, that they would have in other places.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> It\u2019s a continuing story. We\u2019ll obviously post the link to it. Well, I also want to talk about age this week. <a>Specifically<\/a> the somewhat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2024\/02\/09\/neuropsychologist-on-biden-criticism-aging-science\/\">advanced age of our likely presidential candidates<\/a> this year. President [Joe] Biden, currently age 81, and former President Trump, age 77. One thing voters of both parties seem to agree on is that both are generically too old, although voters in neither party seem to have alternative candidates in mind. My KFF Health News colleague Judy Graham has a really interesting piece on increasing ageism in U.S. society that the seniors we used to admire and honor we now scorn and ignore. Is this just the continuing irritation at the self-centeredness of the baby boomers or is there something else going on here that <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/old-people-does-society-care-ageism-pandemic\/?utm_campaign=KHN%20New%20from%20KHN&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;_hsmi=293470772&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8JmpCXIDpTEAHossqndPzAZ2da977c7seXsZDNVrBi_5jE8itH4A4HfGC4VrvSz41BZENLHo7WryHRxYK1PPwMGqSaYw&amp;utm_content=293470772&amp;utm_source=hs_email\">old people have become dispensable<\/a> and not worth listening to? I keep thinking the \u201cOK, boomer\u201d refrain. It keeps ringing in my ears.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weber:<\/strong> I mean, I think there\u2019s a mix of things going on here. I mean, her piece was really fascinating because it also touched upon the <a>fact<\/a> \u2014 which all of us here reported on; Rachana and I wrote a story about this back in 2021 \u2014 on how nursing homes really have been abandoned to some extent. I mean, folks are not getting the covid vaccine. People are dying of covid, they die of the flu, and it\u2019s considered a way of life. And there is almost an irritation that there would be any expectation that it would be any differently because it\u2019s a \u201cDon\u2019t infringe upon my rights\u201d thought. And I do think her piece was fascinating because it asks, \u201cAre we really looking at the elderly?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I mean, I think that\u2019s very different when we talk about politicians. I mean, the Biden bit is a bit different. I mean, I think there is some frustration in the American populace with the age of politicians. I think that reached a bit of a boiling point with the Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein issue, that I think is continuing to boil over in the current presidential election. But that said, we\u2019re hurtling towards an election with these two folks. I mean, that\u2019s where we\u2019re at. So I think they\u2019re a bit different, but I do think there is a national conversation about age that is happening to some <a>degree, but<\/a> is not happening in consideration to others.<\/p>\n<p>Well, I was going to say, I think the other aspect is that these people are in <a>the public<\/a> all the time, or they\u2019re supposed to be. President Biden is giving speeches. Potential candidate President Trump, GOP main candidate, he\u2019s in the spotlight all the time, too. And so you can actually see when they mess up sometimes. You can see potentially what people are saying is signs of aging. And so I think it\u2019s different when they\u2019re literally in front of your eyes and they\u2019re supposed to be making decisions about the direction of this country, potentially. So I think it\u2019s somewhat a valid conversation to have when the country is in their hands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yeah, and obviously the presidency ages you. [Barack] Obama went in as this young, strong-looking guy and came out with very gray hair, and he was young when he went in. Bill Clinton, too, was young when he was elected and came out looking considerably older. And so Biden, if people have pointed out, looks a lot older now than he did when he was running back in 2020. But meanwhile, despite what voters and some special councils think \u2014 including the one who said that Biden was what a kindly old man with a bad memory \u2014 neuroscientists say that it\u2019s <a>actually bunk<\/a> that age alone can determine how mentally fit somebody is, and that even if memory does start to decline, judgment and wisdom may improve as you age. Why is nobody in either party making this point? I mean, the people supporting Biden are just saying that he\u2019s doing a good job and he deserves to continue doing a good job. I mean, talk about the elephant in the room and nobody\u2019s talking about it at all with Trump.<\/p>\n<p><a><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong><\/a> Yeah, I mean, I think probably the short answer is that it\u2019s not really as politically expedient to talk about those things. <a>I thought it was really interesting.<\/a> Yeah, I really appreciated Stat News had this <a>really interesting<\/a> Q&amp;A article. And then also there was this opinion piece in The New York Times that, this line struck me so much about, again, both about Biden\u2019s age and his memory. And this line I thought was so fascinating because it just is telling how people\u2019s perceptions can change so much depending on the discourse. So it pointed out that Joe Biden is the same age as Harrison Ford, Paul McCartney, Martin Scorsese. He\u2019s younger than Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, who is considered to be one of the shrewdest and smartest investors, I think, and CEOs of modern times. And no one is saying, \u201cWell, they\u2019re too old to be doing their jobs\u201d or anything. I\u2019m not trying to suggest that people who have concerns about both candidates\u2019 age[s] are not valid, but I think we sometimes have to double-check why we might be being led to think that way, and when it\u2019s not really the same standards are not applied across the board to people who are even older than they are.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> I do think that some of the frustration, I think, Lauren, you mentioned this, is that in recent years, <a>the vast majority of<\/a> leadership positions in the U.S. government have been held by people who are, shall we say, visibly old. I mean Nancy Pelosi is still in Congress, but she at least figured out that she needed to step down from being speaker because I think the three top leaders in the House were all in their either late 70s or early 80s. The Senate has long been the land of very old people because you get elected to a six-year term. I mean, Chuck Grassley is 90 now, is he not? Feinstein wasn\u2019t even, I don\u2019t think, the oldest member of the Senate. So I think it\u2019s glaring and staring us in the face. Rachana, you wanted to add something before we moved on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> Well, I think probably, and a lot of that too is just I think probably a reflection of voters\u2019 broader gripes or concerns about the fact that we have people who hold office for an eternity, to not exaggerate it. And so people want to see new leadership, new energy, and when you have public officeholders who hold these jobs for \u2026 they\u2019re career politicians, and I think that that is frustrating to a lot of people. They want to see a new generation<a>, even<\/a> regardless of political party, of ideas and energy. <a>And then when you have these octogenarians holding onto their seats and run over and over and over again, I think that that\u2019s frustrating.<\/a> And people don\u2019t get energized about those candidates, especially when they\u2019re running for president. They just don\u2019t. So it\u2019s a reflection of just, I think, broader concerns.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> And I think one more thing too was, I mean, Sen. Feinstein died while she was in office. I mean, people also may be referencing Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, and it\u2019s the question of, should you be holding onto a position that you may die in it, and not setting the way for the new person to take over and making that path available for the next people? Is that the best way to lead in whatever position you\u2019re in? I think, again, Rachana said that\u2019s frustrating for a lot of people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> And I think what both parties have been guilty of, although I think Democrats even more than Republicans, is preparing people, making sure that that next generation is ready, that you don\u2019t want to go from these people with age and wisdom and experience to somebody who knows nothing. You need those people coming up through the ranks. And I think there\u2019s been a dearth of people coming up through the ranks lately, and I think that\u2019s probably the big frustration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> I\u2019m not sure if this is still true now, but I certainly remember, I think when Paul Ryan was speaker of the House, I remember the average age of the House Republican conference was significantly younger than that of Democrats. And they would highlight that. They would say, \u201cLook, we are electing a new generation of leaders and look at these aging Democrats over here.\u201d And that might still be true, but I certainly remember that that was something that they tried to capitalize on, oh-so-long ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> As we talked about last week, there are now a lot of those not-so-young Republicans, but not really old, who are just getting out because it is no fun anymore to be in Congress. Which is a good segue because \u2026 oh, go ahead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Oh, I was just saying one thing Republicans do do in the House, at least they do have term limits on the chairmanships to ensure people do not hold onto those leadership positions forever. And Democrats do not have that. That\u2019s at least in the House.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> But then you get the expertise walking out the door. It\u2019s a double-edged sword.<\/p>\n<p><a><strong>Knight:<\/strong><\/a> Which is, not all the ones that are leaving have reached their term limits, which is the interesting thing actually. But yes, that expertise can walk out the door.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Well, speaking of Congress, here in Washington, as I mentioned at the top, Congress is in recess, but when they come back, they will have I believe it is three days before the first raft of temporary spending bills expire. <a>Victoria, is this the time that the government\u2019s going to actually shut down, or are we looking at yet another round of short-term continuing resolutions?<\/a> And at some point automatic cuts kick in, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Yeah, the eternal question that we\u2019ve had all of this Congress, I think both sides do not want to shut down. I saw some reporting this morning that was saying [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer is talking to [House Speaker] Mike Johnson, but he also, Schumer did not want to commit to a CR [continuing resolution] yet either. So it\u2019s possible, but we said that every time and they\u2019ve pulled it off. I think they just know a shutdown is so, not even maybe necessarily politically toxic, but potentially \u2014because I don\u2019t know how much the public understands what that means \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Because they don\u2019t understand who\u2019s at fault.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Right. Who\u2019s at fault \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> \u2026 when it does shut down. They just know that the Social Security office is closed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Right, but I just know they know it\u2019s dysfunctional or it just can make things messy when that happens; it\u2019s harder for agencies and things like that. So we\u2019ll see. So the deadline is next Friday for the first set of bills. It\u2019s just four bills then, and then the next deadline is March 8 for the other eight bills. There\u2019s some talk that we may see a package over the weekend, but it\u2019s Mike Johnson\u2019s deciding moment. Again, he\u2019s getting pressure from the House Freedom Caucus to push for either spending cuts or policy riders that include anti-abortion riders, anti-gender-affirming care, a lot. There\u2019s a whole list of things that they sent yesterday they want in bills, and so he\u2019s going to have to \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Culture wars is the shorthand for a lot of those.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Yes, exactly. And <a>so<\/a> <a>House<\/a> Freedom Caucus sent a letter yesterday, and so Mike Johnson\u2019s going to have to decide does he <a>want<\/a> to acquiesce to any House Freedom Caucus demands or does he want to work? But if he doesn\u2019t want to do that, then he\u2019s going to have to pass any funding bills with Democratic votes because he does not have enough votes with the Republicans alone, if Freedom Caucus people and people aligned in that direction don\u2019t vote for any funding bills. If he does that, if he works with Democrats, then there is talk that they might file a motion to vacate him out of the speakership. <a>So<\/a> it\u2019s the same problem that Kevin McCarthy had. The one thing going for Johnson is that he doesn\u2019t have the baggage that Kevin McCarthy had, a lot of political baggage. A lot of people had ill will towards him, just built up over the years. Johnson doesn\u2019t seem to have that as much, <a>and also<\/a> Republicans, do they want to be leadership-less again?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Because that worked so well the first two times.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Right, so he has got to decide again who he wants to work with. And it doesn\u2019t seem like we know yet how that\u2019s going to go, and that will determine whether the government shuts down or not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> But somebody also reminded me that on April 1, if they haven\u2019t done full-year funding, that automatic cuts kick in. I had forgotten that. <a>So<\/a> I mean, they can\u2019t just keep rolling these deadlines indefinitely. This presumably is the last time they can roll a deadline without having other ramifications.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> Absolutely. And Freedom Caucus<a>, actually, I<\/a> think that\u2019s partly why they don\u2019t want to agree to something, because they want the 1% <a>cuts<\/a> across the board. So that was part of the deal made last year under Kevin McCarthy was, if they don\u2019t come up with full funding bills by April 1, there will be a 1% cut put into place. And <a>so<\/a> the more hard-liners [are] like, \u201cGreat, we\u2019re going to cut funding, so we want to do that.\u201d And then Democrats don\u2019t want that to happen. And so yeah, it\u2019s the last time that they can potentially do a CR before that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yeah, just a reminder, for those who are not keeping track, that April 1 is six months, halfway through the fiscal year for them to have not finished the fiscal year spending bills.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> And one more note is that usually they\u2019re starting on this coming year spending bills by this point in Congress. <a>So<\/a> we\u2019re still working on FY24 bills. We should be working on FY25 bills already. <a>So<\/a> they\u2019re already behind. It\u2019s dysfunctional.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s fair to say the congressional budget process has completely broken down. Well, moving on to \u201cThis Week in Medical Misinformation,\u201d we have a case of doing well by doing no good. Lauren, tell us about your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/2024\/02\/21\/covid-misinformation-earnings\/\">story looking into the profits<\/a> that accrued to anti-vaccine and anti-science groups during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weber:<\/strong> So I took a look at a bunch of tax records, and what I found is that four major nonprofits that rose to prominence during the covid pandemic by capitalizing on the spread of misinformation collectively gained more than <a>$118 billion<\/a> from 2020 to 2022. And were able to deploy that money to gain influence in statehouses, courtrooms, and communities across the country. <a>And it\u2019s a pretty staggering figure to tabulate all together.<\/a> And what was particularly interesting is there was four of these different groups that I was directed to look at by experts in the field, and one of them includes Children\u2019s Health Defense, which was founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and they received, in 2022, $23.5 million in contributions, grants, and other revenue. That was eight times what they got before the pandemic. And that kind of story was reflected in these other groups as well. And it just shows that the fair amount of money that they were able to collect during this time as they were promoting content and other things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean literally misinformation pays. While we\u2019re on this subject, I would also note that this week there\u2019s a huge multinational study of 99 million people vaccinated against covid that confirmed previous studies showing an association between being vaccinated and developing some rare complications. <a>But <\/a><a>a number of<\/a> stories, at least I thought, overstated the risks of the study that it actually identified. Most failed to include the context that almost every vaccine has the possibility of causing adverse reactions in some very small number of people. The question of course, when you\u2019re evaluating vaccines, is if the benefit outweighs the benefit of protecting against whatever this disease or condition outweighs the risk of these rare side effects.<\/p>\n<p>I would also point out that this is why the U.S. <a>actually has<\/a> something called the [National] Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which helps provide for people, particularly children, who experience rare complications to otherwise mandatory vaccines. Anyway, that is the end of my rant. I was just frustrated by the idea that yes, yes, we know vaccines sometimes have side effects. That\u2019s the nature of vaccines. That\u2019s one of the reasons we study them.<\/p>\n<p>All right, anyway, that is the news for this week. Now it is time for our extra-credit segment. That\u2019s when we each recommend a story we read this week we think you should read, too. As always, don\u2019t worry if you miss it. We will post the links on the <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/tag\/podcast\/\">podcast page<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/\">kffhealthnews.org<\/a> and in our show notes on your phone or other mobile device. Victoria, why don\u2019t you go first this week?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> <a>So<\/a> my extra credit this week is a story in ProPublica called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/the-year-after-a-denied-abortion\/?utm_source=sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&amp;utm_content=feature\">The Year After a Denied Abortion<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s by [photographer] Stacy Kranitz and [reporter] Kavitha Surana. And it was a very moving photo essay and story about a woman who was denied an abortion in Tennessee literally weeks to a month after <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> was overturned in June 2022, and this was in July 2022. She got pregnant and was denied an abortion. And <a>so<\/a> it followed her through the next year of her life after that happened. And in Tennessee, it\u2019s one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation. Abortion is banned and there are very rare exceptions. And so this woman, Mayron Michelle Hollis, she already had some children that had been taken out of her care by the state, and so she was already fighting custody battles and then got pregnant. And Tennessee is also a state that doesn\u2019t have a very robust safety-net system, so it follows her as she has a baby that\u2019s born prematurely, has a lot of health issues, doesn\u2019t have a lot of state programs to help her.<\/p>\n<p>She was afraid to go through unemployment because she had had issues with that before. <a>The paperwork situation\u2019s really tough.<\/a> There\u2019s just so much stress involved also with the situation. She eventually ends up kind of relapsing, starting drinking too much alcohol, and she ends up in jail at the end of the story. And so it just talks about how if there is not a robust safety net in a state, if you\u2019re kind of forced to have a pregnancy that you maybe are not able to take care of, it can be <a>really tough<\/a> financially and psychologically and tough for the mother and the child. <a>So<\/a> it was a really moving story and there were photos following her through that year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Lauren.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weber:<\/strong> I wanted to shout <a>out<\/a> my colleague who I actually sit next to, David Ovalle, who is wonderful at The Washington Post. He wrote an article called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2024\/02\/20\/kratom-deaths\/?utm_campaign=wp_the_health_202&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;wpisrc=nl_health202\">They Take Kratom to Ease Pain or Anxiety. Sometimes, Death Follows<\/a>.\u201d And, as our addiction reporter for the Post, he did a horribly depressing but wonderful job actually calculating how many kratom deaths or deaths associated with kratom have happened in recent years. And what he found through requests is that at least 4,100 deaths in 44 states and D.C. were linked to kratom between 2020 and 2022, which is public service journalism at its best. I mean, I think people are clear that there is more risks with this, but I think that it\u2019s emerging <a>actually how<\/a> those risks are. And he catalogs through the hard numbers, which is often what it requires for folks to pay attention, that this is something that is interactive with other medications which is causing death, in some cases, on death certificates. <a>So<\/a> <a>pretty moving<\/a> story, he talked to a lot of the families of folks that have died and it really makes you wonder about the state of regulation around kratom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Yeah, and then, I mean, all food diet supplements that are basically unregulated by the FDA because Congress determined in the 1990s that they should be unregulated because the supplement industry lobbied them very heavily and we will talk about that at some other time. Rachana.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> My extra credit is a story in Politico by Megan Messerly. It\u2019s titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/02\/20\/donald-trump-medicaid-states-00141397\">Red States Hopeful for a 2nd Trump Term Prepare to Curtail Medicaid<\/a>.\u201d The short version is work requirements are in, again. There was an effort previously that Republicans wanted to impose employment as a condition of receiving Medicaid benefits, and then they were very quickly, a couple of states, were sued. Only one program really got off the ground, Arkansas. And what happened as a result is because of the paperwork burdens and other things, thousands of people lost coverage. So currently the Biden administration, of course, is not OK at all with tying any type of work, volunteer service, you name it, to Medicaid benefits. But I think Republicans would be \u2014 the story talks about how Republicans would be eager to go and pursue that policy push again and curtail enrollment <a>as a result of<\/a> that.<\/p>\n<p>So I thought that was, it\u2019s an interesting political story. One thing it did make me wonder though, just as an aside is, there\u2019s also been discussion on the flip side, the states in the story, which focus on South Dakota and Louisiana, states that many of them have already expanded coverage to cover the ACA [Affordable Care Act] population, but there are also still states that have not expanded Medicaid under the ACA\u2019s income thresholds. And those conservative states might find it slightly more palatable to do so if you allow them to impose these types of conditions on the program. And <a>so<\/a> I think we will see what happens.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Although, as we talked about not too long ago, Georgia, one of the states that has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act now has a work requirement for Medicaid. And they\u2019ve gotten something in the neighborhood, I believe, of like 2,700 people who\u2019ve signed up out of a potential <a>100,000 people<\/a> who could be covered if they actually expanded Medicaid. <a>So<\/a> another space that we will watch.<\/p>\n<p>Well, my extra credit this week is from Stat News and, warning, it\u2019s super nerdy. It\u2019s called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2024\/02\/20\/cms-medicare-medicaid-research-fees-data-security\/\">New CMS Rules Will Throttle Access Researchers Need to Medicare, Medicaid Data<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s by Rachel Werner, who\u2019s a physician researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, and it\u2019s about a change recently announced by the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services that will make it more difficult and more expensive for researchers to work with the program\u2019s data, of which there is a lot. Since the new policy was announced earlier this month, according to CMS, in response to an increase in data breaches, I\u2019ve heard from a lot of researchers who are worried that critical research won\u2019t get done and that new researchers won\u2019t get trained if these changes are implemented because only certain people will have access to the data because you\u2019ll have to pay every time somebody else gets access to the data. <a>Again, it\u2019s an incredibly nerdy issue, but also really important.<\/a> So the department is taking <a>comment<\/a> on <a>this<\/a> and we\u2019ll see if they actually follow through.<\/p>\n<p>OK, that is our show. As always, if you enjoy the podcast, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We\u2019d appreciate it if you left us a review; that helps other people find us, too. Special thanks as always to our technical guru, Francis Ying, and our editor, Emmarie Huetteman. As always, you can email us your comments or questions. We\u2019re at whatthehealth@kff.org, or you can still find me at X, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jrovner\">@jrovner<\/a>. Rachana, where are you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pradhan:<\/strong> Still on X, hanging on, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rachanadpradhan\">@rachanadpradhan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Victoria.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Knight:<\/strong> I\u2019m also on X <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/victoriaregisk\">@victoriaregisk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> Lauren?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weber:<\/strong> Still on X <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/laurenweberhp\">@LaurenWeberHP<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rovner:<\/strong> I think people have come sort of slithering back. We will be back in your feed next week. Until then, be healthy.<\/p>\n<h3>\n\t\tCredits\t<\/h3>\n<p>\tFrancis Ying<br \/>\n\tAudio producer<\/p>\n<p>\tEmmarie Huetteman<br \/>\n\tEditor <\/p>\n<p><em>To hear all our podcasts,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/tag\/podcast\/\">click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And subscribe to KFF Health News\u2019 \u201cWhat the Health?\u201d on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/32EdsB662C3oyIrqLMmBXI?si=TQhRjzzLTgWtK3crfbOFtA\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/what-the-health\/id1253607372?mt=2\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/play.pocketcasts.com\/web\/podcasts\/a379e280-3f57-0135-9028-63f4b61a9224\">Pocket Casts<\/a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/about-us\">KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/about-us\/\">KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n<p>This story can be republished for free (<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/pregnancy-care-jails-prisons-incarcerated-women\/view\/republish\/\">details<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie&#8217;s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News\u2019 weekly health policy news podcast, \u201cWhat the Health?\u201d A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book \u201cHealth Care Politics and Policy A to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2462,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions\/2462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}