Can\u2019t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast.<\/a> You can also listen on Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Stitcher<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here for a transcript of the episode.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Congress is supposed to complete its annual appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. But it rarely does, and this year is no different, as lawmakers scramble to pass a short-term funding bill so they can put off final decisions until at least December.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, with an eye to the midterms, House Republicans put out a \u201cCommitment to America,\u201d which includes only the vaguest promises related to health care. It\u2019s yet another demonstration that the only thing in health care that unifies Republicans is their opposition to Democrats\u2019 health policies. It\u2019s notable that this latest Republican plan does not<\/em> suggest repealing the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Victoria Knight of Axios.<\/p>\n

Among the takeaways from this week\u2019s episode:<\/p>\n

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The short-term funding bill to keep the government open includes the five-year reauthorization of the FDA\u2019s user fees, which are charged to drugmakers and help pay the salaries of many FDA employees. Democrats had hoped to add provisions to that measure that would create regulations on dietary supplements, cosmetics, and lab tests. The current authorization runs out Oct. 1, and Republicans insisted they would support only a clean bill that did not have new government directives.<\/li>\n
That government funding bill also will not include President Joe Biden\u2019s request for $20 billion to help pay for additional covid-19 and monkeypox vaccines and testing. Democrats said they wanted to extend those programs, but Republicans balked and said the administration still has not accounted for all the previous appropriations.<\/li>\n
Biden\u2019s comment on \u201c60 Minutes\u201d suggesting that the covid pandemic \u201cis over\u201d hurt administration efforts to persuade Congress to pass the extra covid funding.<\/li>\n
Biden took a victory lap this week and touted successes on administration priorities for Medicare. Among them, he said, was a reduction in next year\u2019s Part B premium, which generally covers beneficiaries\u2019 outpatient expenses. But that premium went down, primarily because Medicare charged too much in 2022.<\/li>\n
Medicare premiums this year saw a dramatic increase because officials anticipated that the federal health program would see higher costs associated with the use of Aduhelm, an expensive medication for some Alzheimer\u2019s patients that received tentative approval in 2021 by the FDA. Medicare officials later said they would cover the drug only for patients who also enrolled in a clinical trial, and the expectations for use of the drug plummeted.<\/li>\n
Republican House members\u2019 proposed agenda pledged to reverse the Democrats\u2019 decision this year to allow Medicare to negotiate some drug prices. Although Democrats said the provision would help drive down costs, Republicans said they don\u2019t like the government interfering in the private market and fear that the measure would hamper innovation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Also this week, Rovner interviews filmmaker Cynthia Lowen, whose new documentary, \u201cBattleground,\u201d explores how anti-abortion forces played the long game to overturn Roe<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too:<\/p>\n
Julie Rovner:<\/strong> KHN\u2019s \u201cBritain\u2019s Hard Lessons From Handing Elder Care Over to Private Equity<\/a>,\u201d by Christine Spolar<\/p>\n
Alice Miranda Ollstein:<\/strong> KHN\u2019s \u201cEmbedded Bias: How Medical Records Sow Discrimination<\/a>,\u201d by Darius Tahir<\/p>\n
Rachel Cohrs:<\/strong> The New York Times\u2019 \u201cArbitration Has Come to Senior Living. You Don\u2019t Have to Sign Up<\/a>,\u201d by Paula Span<\/p>\n
Victoria Knight:<\/strong> Forbes\u2019 \u201cMark Cuban Considering Leaving Shark Tank as He Bets His Legacy on Low-Cost Drugs<\/a>,\u201d by Jemima McEvoy\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also mentioned in this week\u2019s episode:<\/p>\n
To hear all our podcasts,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
And subscribe to KHN\u2019s What the Health? on Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Stitcher<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n
KHN<\/a> (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF<\/a> (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.<\/p>\n
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Have questions? Let us know at KHNHelp@kff.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can\u2019t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here for a transcript of the episode. Congress is supposed to complete its annual appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pharmaceuticals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","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=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/90"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}