Congressional lawmakers are facing tricky arithmetic as they hammer out a budget plan to finance President Donald Trump’s agenda. Republicans need to free up roughly $4 trillion to pay for renewing Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of the year. Trump has vowed not to touch the costliest government programs, including Medicare…
Katherine Saunders is the co-founder and CMO at FlyteHealth. She was one of the first 20 obesity fellows in the US. FlyteHealth is the specialized online obesity clinic that resulted from her desire to scale what works for individuals to combat their obesity–by the time people get to FlyteHealth 99% of them are ready for…
Some private schools have shut down because of a rapidly escalating measles outbreak in West Texas. Local health departments are overstretched, pausing other important work as they race to limit the spread of this highly contagious virus. Since the outbreak emerged three weeks ago, the Texas health department has confirmed 90 cases with 16 hospitalizations,…
Medicaid is under threat — again. Republicans, who narrowly control Congress, are pushing proposals that could sharply cut funding to the government health insurance program for poor and disabled Americans, as a way to finance President Donald Trump’s agenda for tax cuts and border security. Democrats, hoping to block the GOP’s plans and preserve Medicaid…
Texas is moving to allow for more freedom of choice with respect to receipt of vaccines. The Economist reports: Texas legislators meeting in Austin, the state capital, are debating new laws to relax vaccine rules, urged on by Texans for Vaccine Choice (TFVC). On February 18th activists in “Come and Make Me” shirts took to…
A Kentucky county nestled in the heart of Appalachia, where the opioid crisis has wreaked devastation for decades, spent $15,000 of its opioid settlement money on an ice rink. That amount wasn’t enough to solve the county’s troubles, but it could have bought 333 kits of Narcan, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses. Instead,…
In Feedspot’s 2025 ranking of economics blogs, Healthcare Economist was once again ranked in the top 100 (#44). I was also ranked as the #4 top health economics blog of 2025 as well. You can see their full economics blog rankings here.
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to…
In October, Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya hosted a conference on the lessons of covid-19 in order “to do better in the next pandemic.” He invited scholars, journalists, and policy wonks who, like him, have criticized the U.S. management of the crisis as overly draconian. Bhattacharya also invited public health authorities who had considered his…
In January, during a congressional hearing on his way to becoming secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got basic details wrong about Medicaid — a program he now oversees. He said that Medicaid is fully funded by the federal government (it’s not) and that many enrollees are unsatisfied…