KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': GOP Poised To Cut Billions in Health Benefits

After all-night markups, two key House committees approved GOP budget legislation that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from federal health programs over the next decade, mostly from the Medicaid program for people with low incomes or disabilities. The legislation is far from a done deal, though, with at least one Republican senator voicing opposition to Medicaid cuts.

Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before Congress for the first time since taking office. In sometimes surprisingly combative exchanges with lawmakers in the House and Senate, Kennedy denied cutting programs despite evidence to the contrary and said at one point that he doesn’t think Americans “should be taking medical advice from me.”

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Julie Appleby of KFF Health News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico.

Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:

• House Republicans this week released — then quickly ushered through committee — major legislation that would make deep cuts to federal spending while funding President Donald Trump’s domestic priorities, including renewing tax cuts and boosting border security. A preliminary estimate by the Congressional Budget Office found the bill would cut at least $715 billion from federal health spending over 10 years — with most of that money coming from the Medicaid program.
• Overall, the House GOP’s proposal would make it harder to enroll, and stay enrolled, in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage. Among other changes, the bill would impose a requirement that nondisabled adults (with some exceptions) work, volunteer, or study at least 80 hours per month to be eligible for coverage. But Democrats and patient advocates point to evidence that, rather than encouraging employment, such a mandate results in more people losing or dropping coverage under burdensome paperwork requirements.
• Republicans also declined to extend the enhanced tax credits introduced during the covid-19 pandemic that help many people afford ACA marketplace coverage. Those tax credits expire at the end of the year, and premiums are expected to balloon, which could prompt many people not to renew their coverage.
• And Kennedy’s appearances on Capitol Hill this week provided Congress the first opportunity to question the health secretary since he assumed his post. He was grilled by Democrats about vaccines, congressionally appropriated funds, agency firings, and much more.

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

Julie Rovner: The New York Times’ “Elizabeth Holmes’s Partner Has a New Blood-Testing Start-Up,” by Rob Copeland.

Alice Miranda Ollstein: ProPublica’s “He Became the Face of Georgia’s Medicaid Work Requirement. Now He’s Fed Up With It.” by Margaret Coker, The Current.

Julie Appleby: Scientific American’s “How Trump’s National Weather Service Cuts Could Cost Lives,” by Andrea Thompson.

Joanne Kenen: The Atlantic’s “Now Is Not the Time To Eat Bagged Lettuce,” by Nicholas Florko.

Also mentioned in this week’s podcast:

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