KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Dems Debate Health Care


Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud.


Health care played a feature role in the first debate among Democratic presidential candidates Wednesday, with would-be nominees spreading across the spectrum on the question of how quickly to move to universal coverage and what, if any, role should remain for private insurance.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump earlier this week signed an executive order calling for hospital prices to be made more available to the public. But some analysts wonder if publicizing prices could cause them to rise rather than fall.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner from Kaiser Health News, Stephanie Armour of The Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Adams of CQ Roll Call and Anna Edney of Bloomberg News.

Among the takeaways from this week’s podcast:

Also this week, Rovner interviews NPR’s Jon Hamilton, who wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature about expensive monitoring during spine surgery. If you have an outrageous medical bill you would like to share with us, you can do that here.

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read too:

Julie Rovner: The Washington Post’s “When Abortion Was Illegal: A 1966 Post Series Revealed How Women Got Them Anyway,” by Elisabeth Stevens

Stephanie Armour: STAT News’“Ghost Networks of Psychiatrists Make Money for Insurance Companies but Hinder Patients’ Access to Care,” by Jack Turban

Rebecca Adams: NPR’s “San Francisco Bans Sales of E-Cigarettes,” by Laura Klivans

Anna Edney: The New York Times’ “Vaccine Injury Claims Are Few and Far Between,” by Pam Belluck and Reed Abelson

To hear all our podcasts, click here.

And subscribe to What the Health? on iTunesStitcherGoogle PlaySpotify, or Pocket Casts.


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

Exit mobile version