KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: It’s Scandal Week


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President Donald Trump finally released his promised executive order aimed at bringing down drug costs. It factors in international prices to determine what Medicare pays for prescriptions. But the order has no force of law unless the Department of Health and Human Services issues regulations, which could take months or even years if drug companies challenge the effort in court, as they have promised.

Meanwhile, several agencies within HHS are engulfed in scandal. The White House-installed HHS spokesperson took medical leave after a spate of stories about how he tried to interfere with the work of career scientists regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The head of the Medicare and Medicaid programs spent millions of taxpayer dollars to burnish her personal image, according to Democratic congressional investigators. And HHS Secretary Alex Azar apparently overruled the Food and Drug Administration over efforts to regulate a class of COVID diagnostic tests.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Tami Luhby of CNN and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet.

Among the other takeaways from this week’s podcast:

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

Julie Rovner: KHN’s “Lack of Antigen Test Reporting Leaves Country ‘Blind to the Pandemic,” by Rachana Pradhan, Lauren Weber and Hannah Recht

Alice Miranda Ollstein: Politico’s “Harvest of Shame: Farmworkers Face Coronavirus Disaster,” by Helena Bottemiller Evich, Ximena Bustillo and Liz Crampton

Tami Luhby: The Washington Post’s “Medicaid Rolls Swell Amid the Pandemic’s Historic Job Losses, Straining State Budgets,” by Amy Goldstein

Sarah Karlin-Smith: KHN’s “Hospitals, Nursing Homes Fail to Separate COVID Patients, Putting Others at Risk,” by Christina Jewett


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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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