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Podcast: ‘What The Health?’ Back To Health Crunch Come September

Clockwise from left, Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post. (Lynne Shallcross/KHN)

With Congress set to hold hearings early next month on ways to stabilize the Affordable Care Act insurance markets, lawmakers are looking at a variety of ideas. Some involve giving more federal money and flexibility to the states, while others aim to give insurers more help with high-cost cases and make permanent the law’s cost-sharing subsidies that help low-income individuals with out-of-pocket costs like copayments and deductibles.

Health care will compete this fall with other pressing legislative priorities, including raising the federal debt ceiling, keeping the government funded beyond the end of current fiscal year on Sept. 30, reauthorizing the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, and overhauling the tax code.

In this episode of “What The Health,” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post discuss the upcoming ACA open enrollment season — including the role of navigators and insurance brokers. In particular, they address the clear signals that the Trump administration is not planning to do the same level of outreach as the Obama administration did to encourage current ACA enrollees to renew coverage and to attract new participants.

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This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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