KHN’s ‘What the Well being?’: Election Preview: What’s Subsequent for Well being?

What The Well being? · Election Preview: What’s Subsequent for Well being?

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Voters say well being points — from the Inexpensive Care Act to COVID-19 to prescription drug costs — are vital concerns within the November common election. However which points are really shifting voters to take part in a yr as politically polarized as 2020?

Former Vice President Joe Biden says he desires to develop the Inexpensive Care Act if he’s elected and Democrats win the Senate. President Donald Trump says he’ll discover a solution to shield folks with preexisting circumstances if his Supreme Court docket nominee helps strike down the ACA. And each candidates insist they may efficiently management the coronavirus pandemic.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Well being Information, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Instances, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Rebecca Adams of CQ Roll Name.

Among the many takeaways from this week’s podcast:

• The presidential debate Tuesday night time didn’t illuminate a lot about well being take care of voters. Biden, the Democratic candidate, wasn’t incisive about his plan and mischaracterized a key provision, the general public choice he hopes so as to add to the Inexpensive Care Act. Trump, a Republican, misrepresented a lot of the knowledge he provided about his efforts on well being care.
• Nonetheless, the controversy did painting the rising curiosity amongst partisans to make use of well being care as a essential problem within the closing weeks of the marketing campaign and introduced the destiny of the ACA again to the highest of Democrats’ speaking factors.
• Trump and different Republicans who need to do away with the ACA usually promise to guard well being protection for folks with preexisting medical points, though they haven’t provided any proof of how they’d accomplish that. Current polls counsel that GOP voters imagine they may observe via on that pledge. The well being regulation made ensures to insurers that, in the event that they accepted these costly clients, the prices could be coated as a result of they’d have extra folks shopping for insurance coverage.
• Though protections for preexisting circumstances are widespread, Democrats are discovering it considerably difficult to get voters excited concerning the problem as a result of they don’t assume Republicans would truly do away with the favored provision. As well as, many individuals have forgotten the issue that sufferers had getting insurance coverage earlier than the ACA grew to become regulation.
• The coronavirus pandemic will play a job in voters’ choices, but it surely may play out in numerous methods. Some persons are involved that the federal effort hasn’t labored successfully, whereas others are involved concerning the financial meltdown the outbreak triggered. On the identical time, persons are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster and discovering it onerous to course of that 800 to 1,000 persons are dying every day from the illness.
• The well being care subject that appears to have really galvanized the president — ever since his first marketing campaign — is excessive drug costs. Though he has pushed onerous on the difficulty, to make any progress he wants laws from Congress, and Republicans on Capitol Hill haven’t been keen to observe him on insurance policies which are straight opposed by drugmakers and, in some instances, could contain price- setting.
• If Biden had been elected, his plans to develop the ACA via a public choice and even to decrease the eligibility age for Medicare would face a tricky time in Congress, even when Democrats win again the Senate.

This week, Rovner additionally interviews KHN’s Laura Ungar, who wrote the newest installment of KHN-NPR’s “Invoice of the Month.” This month’s affected person, Matthew Fentress, had insurance coverage however nonetheless obtained an enormous invoice as a result of he’s amongst these People whose insurance coverage is just not thought-about ample. When you have an infinite medical invoice you want to share with us, you are able to do that right here.

Plus, for further credit score, the panelists suggest their favourite well being coverage tales of the week they assume you need to learn too:

Julie Rovner: The Washington Put up’s “7 former FDA commissioners: The Trump Administration Is Undermining the Credibility of the FDA,” by Robert Califf, Scott Gottlieb, Margaret Hamburg, Jane Henney, David Kessler, Mark McClellan and Andy von Eschenbach

Joanne Kenen: The New York Instances’ “How Trump Voters View His Place on Pre-existing Situations,” by Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz

Margot Sanger-Katz: The New York Instances’ “Immigrants Say They Have been Pressured Into Unneeded Surgical procedures,” by Caitlin Dickerson, Seth Freed Wessler and Miriam Jordan

Rebecca Adams: ProPublica’s “Traders Extracted $400 Million From a Hospital Chain That Generally Couldn’t Pay for Medical Provides or Fuel for Ambulances,” by Peter Elkind with Doris Burke

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