Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Live From Aspen!

With President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress stymied in their efforts to change the nation’s health care system, individual states are wrangling with public ire over price and coverage. Two guests this week, Democratic Govs. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Steve Bullock of Montana, have made health a priority in their states and are among the governors who have signed on to bipartisan efforts to shore up parts of the Affordable Care Act that are not working. Both governors are also among the long list of Democrats mentioned as possible presidential candidates in 2020. Meanwhile, actions in Washington, including this week’s regulation expanding the availability of association health plans, often leave states scrambling to figure out what it will mean for their own health insurance markets. This week’s panelists for KHN’s “What the Health?” are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times. Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:
  • Both governors said they think health care will be a dominant voting issue in 2018 and 2020. They say governors are among the few who are able to work on the issue on a bipartisan basis.
  • The conservative health plan unveiled this week as a replacement for the Affordable Care Act would give states more flexibility. It also would likely pose an enormous challenge because, over time, it would reduce the amount of federal health care dollars and wouldn’t give states much time to implement their programs.
  • If a federal court in Washington, D.C., opts to throw out Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirement for nondisabled adults, expansion plans in a number of states could be thrown into disarray. Some of them, like Kentucky, say they will not keep the expansion without the work requirement.
  • Montana offered a somewhat different path to work for people who are covered under the Medicaid expansion. Eighty percent of them are working already. Instead of being punitive, Bullock said, the state made a number of support services and employment training options available and, in turn, that raised the number of those working by 9 percent.
  • Hickenlooper said that in Colorado, because the unemployment rate is below 3 percent, most of the nondisabled adults who were covered under Medicaid expansion and not working are instead caring for their children or elder family members.
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