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As he had wanted, President Donald Trump signed his big budget bill into a big budget law in a White House ceremony on July 4, cementing, among other things, billions of dollars in cuts to health programs such as Medicaid. The new law will also reshape rules for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and other health programs.
Meanwhile, the threat of layoffs continues to hang over the heads of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, and funding for health-related contracts and grants remains stalled.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Bloomberg News, Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, and Tami Luhby of CNN.
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Julie Appleby, who reported the latest KFF Health News’ “Bill of the Month” feature, about some very expensive childhood immunizations. If you have a medical bill that’s exorbitant, baffling, or confusing, send it to us here.
Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too:
Julie Rovner: The New England Journal of Medicine’s “The Corporatization of U.S. Health Care — A New Perspective Series,” by Debra Malina, et al.
Rachel Roubein: The Associated Press’ “RFK Jr. Promoted a Food Company He Says Will Make Americans Healthy. Their Meals Are Ultraprocessed,” by Amanda Seitz and JoNel Aleccia.
Rachel Cohrs Zhang: The Wall Street Journal’s “Prosecutors Question Doctors About UnitedHealth’s Medicare Billing Practices,” by Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews.
Tami Luhby: The Washington Post’s “A New D.C. Hospital Grapples With Too Many Patients and Too Few Nurses,” by Jenna Portnoy.
Also mentioned in this week’s podcast:
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KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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