Podcast

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Wrapping Up Summer’s Health News


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Congress and President Joe Biden are officially on summer vacation, but they left behind a lot of health policy achievements. The president returned this week from his South Carolina beach retreat to sign the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other things, allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time.

The law also preserves the enhanced subsidies for premiums on insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces. Congress added those more generous subsidies in 2021, but they would have expired at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, even though Democrats were unable to secure additional Medicare vision, hearing, and dental benefits into the final version of the budget bill, this week the FDA established ground rules for the sale of over-the-counter hearing aids, something ordered by Congress in 2017.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Anna Edney of Bloomberg, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico.

Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too:

Julie Rovner: The Los Angeles Times’ “The CDC Loosened Its COVID Rules. Who Fills in This Public Health Vacuum?” by Wendy Netter Epstein and Daniel Goldberg

Alice Miranda Ollstein: MedPage Today’s “Falls From Higher Border Walls Overwhelm Trauma Services,” by Cheryl Clark

Joanne Kenen: Harper’s Magazine’s “A Hole in the Head,” by Zachary Siegel

Anna Edney: Stat’s “Parents and Clinicians Say Private Equity’s Profit Fixation Is Short-Changing Kids With Autism,” by Tara Bannow

Also mentioned in this week’s episode:

The Washington Post’s “Florida Court Rules 16-Year-Old Is Not ‘Sufficiently Mature’ for Abortion,” by Brittany Shammas and Kim Bellware

The Atlantic’s “The Pandemic’s Soft Closing,” by Katherine J. Wu

Politico’s “Tim Kaine Has Long Covid. That’s Not Moving Congress to Act,” by Alice Miranda Ollstein


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