What the Health? From KFF Health News: The GOP Circles the Wagons on ACA

The Host

Julie Rovner
KFF Health News

@jrovner

@julierovner.bsky.social

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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 Z,” now in its third edition.

Millions of people in Republican-dominated states are among those seeing their Affordable Care Act plan premiums spike for 2026 as enhanced, pandemic-era subsidies expire. Yet Republicans in the White House and on Capitol Hill are firming up their opposition to extending those additional payments — at least for now.

Meanwhile, Democrats may not have achieved their shutdown goal of renewing the subsidies, but they have returned health care — one of their top issues with voters — to the national agenda.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, and Shefali Luthra of The 19th.

Panelists

Paige Winfield Cunningham
The Washington Post

@pw_cunningham

Read Paige’s stories.

Joanne Kenen
Johns Hopkins University and Politico

@JoanneKenen

@joannekenen.bsky.social

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Shefali Luthra
The 19th

@shefali.bsky.social

Read Shefali’s stories.

Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:

• Democrats’ focus on insurance costs has pushed health care back into the national spotlight. But far from a bipartisan compromise, lawmakers remain split over how to address the issue, with the enhanced premium ACA subsidies still set to expire and top Republicans musing about instead putting that money into health savings accounts.
• A new change to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website suggests a link between vaccines and autism, amplifying the unsubstantiated claim championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is facing blowback over a major report on transgender health that was written by critics of such care — and without peer review.
• And some Republicans are seeking to tie ACA subsidies to abortion restrictions, providing only the latest example of how the issue regularly becomes tangled in government spending battles. Democrats are unlikely to agree to such changes, especially if Republicans push to direct subsidies into health savings accounts — meaning, theoretically, that any abortion limitations there would be targeting citizens’ private funds.

Also this week, Rovner interviews Avik Roy, a GOP health policy adviser and co-founder and chair of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.

Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too: 

Julie Rovner: CNBC’s “Cheaper Medicines, Free Beach Trips: U.S. Health Plans Tap Prescriptions That Feds Say Are Illegal,” by Scott Zamost, Paige Tortorelli, and Melissa Lee.  

Paige Winfield Cunningham: The Wall Street Journal’s “Medicaid Insurers Promise Lots of Doctors. Good Luck Seeing One,” by Christopher Weaver, Anna Wilde Mathews, and Tom McGinty.  

Joanne Kenen: ProPublica’s “What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic,” by Nat Lash.  

Shefali Luthra: ProPublica’s “‘Ticking Time Bomb’: A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn’t Get an Abortion in Texas,” by Kavitha Surana and Lizzie Presser.  

Also mentioned in this week’s podcast:

• The Washington Post’s “Fight Over Abortion Could Doom Congress’s Health Care Plans,” by Riley Beggin and Theodoric Meyer.
• The Wall Street Journal’s “RFK Jr. Discussed Curbing FDA Head’s Role After Complaints About Management Style,” by Liz Essley Whyte.

Credits

Francis Ying
Audio producer

Emmarie Huetteman
Editor

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KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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