Next on Kennedy’s List? Preventive Care and Vaccine Harm

The Host

Julie Rovner
KFF Well being Information

@jrovner

@julierovner.bsky.social

Learn Julie’s tales.

Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Well being Information’ weekly well being coverage information podcast, “What the Well being?” A famous knowledgeable on well being coverage points, Julie is the creator of the critically praised reference e book “Well being Care Politics and Coverage A to Z,” now in its third version.

In his ongoing effort to reshape well being coverage, Secretary of Well being and Human Providers Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly plans to overtake two extra authorities entities: the U.S. Preventive Providers Job Drive and the Nationwide Vaccine Damage Compensation Program. Ousting the present members of the duty power would give Kennedy a measure of management in figuring out the sorts of preventive care which are coated without charge to sufferers in the USA. And whereas it’s unclear what the secretary would do to the vaccine damage program, Kennedy has made no secret of his perception that vaccines can do extra hurt than good.

In the meantime, final week marked the thirty fifth anniversary of the People with Disabilities Act, and President Donald Trump signed an government order that might allow native and state governments to forcibly hospitalize some people who find themselves homeless and battling psychological well being issues.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Well being Information, Anna Edney of Bloomberg Information, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg College of Public Well being and Politico Journal, and Shefali Luthra of The nineteenth.

Panelists

Anna Edney
Bloomberg Information

@annaedney

@annaedney.bsky.social

Learn Anna’s tales.

Joanne Kenen
Johns Hopkins College and Politico

@JoanneKenen

@joannekenen.bsky.social

Learn Joanne’s bio.

Shefali Luthra
The nineteenth

@shefali.bsky.social

Learn Shefali’s tales.

Among the many takeaways from this week’s episode:

• Lower than two months after Kennedy eliminated all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, he’s reportedly contemplating an analogous purge of members of the duty power that recommends the preventive companies insurers should cowl — an inventory whose companies, a few of them controversial amongst Trump officers, embody medication that stop HIV and sure most cancers screenings. He’s additionally contemplating adjustments to the federal program that compensates individuals who expertise adversarial results from immunizations.
• This week Vinay Prasad, the Meals and Drug Administration’s prime vaccine official, resigned simply months into his tenure. Prasad had come below assault, notably by right-wing persona Laura Loomer, and had been blasted for some company choices about new medication for uncommon illnesses — regardless of his work limiting the usage of covid pictures.
• Trump’s newly introduced commerce take care of the European Union features a 15% tariff on brand-name prescription drugs, which would come with, for instance, the diabetes drug Ozempic, usually used for weight reduction. However it might be tough to decrease costs on brand-name medication by way of tariffs; it’s unlikely that drugmakers, dealing with larger import prices, would relocate manufacturing to the USA.
• Additionally, Trump’s huge tax and spending legislation, hastened by way of Congress weeks in the past, renders some lawfully current immigrants ineligible for Reasonably priced Care Act subsidies. However a brand new KFF Well being Information column factors out that the change would truly increase premiums for everybody else, taking extra wholesome individuals out of the insurance coverage pool.

Additionally this week, Rovner interviews George Washington College well being coverage professor Sara Rosenbaum, one of many nation’s main Medicaid consultants, to mark Medicaid’s sixtieth anniversary this week.

Plus, for “further credit score,” the panelists counsel well being coverage tales they learn this week that they assume you must learn, too:

Julie Rovner: KFF Well being Information’ “Beauty Surgical procedures Led to Disfiguring Accidents, Sufferers Allege,” by Fred Schulte.

Anna Edney: The Washington Put up’s “Morton Mintz, Put up Reporter With a Muckraker Spirit, Dies at 103,” by Stefanie Dazio.

Joanne Kenen: ScienceAlert’s “New Type of Dental Floss Might Exchange Vaccine Needles, Examine Finds,” by David Nield.

Shefali Luthra: The New Yorker’s “Mexico’s Molar Metropolis Might Rework My Smile. Did I Need It To?” by Burkhard Bilger.

Additionally talked about on this week’s podcast:

Credit

Francis Ying
Audio producer

Emmarie Huetteman
Editor

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