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The Trump administration sent its COVID-19 testing strategy plan to Congress, formalizing its policy that most testing responsibilities should remain with individual states. Democrats in Congress complained that the U.S. needs a national strategy, but so far none has emerged.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, noticing that his popularity among seniors has been falling since the pandemic began, unveiled a plan to lower the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries. However, while diabetes is a major problem for seniors in general and for Medicare鈥檚 budget, only a small minority takes insulin.
This week鈥檚 panelists are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Erin Mershon of STAT News.
Among the takeaways from this week鈥檚 podcast:
- The difficulties caused by the lack of a unified federal response to the pandemic can be seen by looking at other countries. Communities around the world face some of the same problems U.S. cities and states do, such as high numbers of cases in nursing homes and other congregate living facilities, and test shortages. But in other countries, the governments have taken the lead in working through the issues.
- Recent episodes of crowds gathering as states reopen point to a breakdown in public health messaging. That may be partly attributable to the president鈥檚 ambivalence or a result of the recent cutback in press briefings and other direct communication from federal public health officials. But much of it could also be directly related to political divisiveness, which runs rampant.
- With a Rose Garden ceremony, Trump announced the deal with drugmakers to limit Medicare beneficiaries鈥� out-of-pocket costs for insulin to $35. That is expected to save those patients on average more than $400 a year. But the announcement is a long way from the promises made by the administration to bring down drug prices for all Americans.
- Republicans have touted short-term insurance plans as a cheaper alternative to health coverage offered under the Affordable Care Act鈥檚 marketplaces. But the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted shortcomings of those plans, including that many don鈥檛 cover prescription medications or experimental treatments.
- The pandemic has also spotlighted the administration鈥檚 intent to get more drug manufacturing 鈥� which has become concentrated in India and China 鈥� to return to the United States. The government recently announced it is starting to add manufacturing capacity stateside.
Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN鈥檚 Phil Galewitz, who reported the latest KHN-NPR 鈥�Bill of the Month鈥� installment about a patient with a suspected case of COVID-19 who did what he was told by his health plan and got billed, anyway. 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: ProPublica鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� by Yeganeh Torbati and Derek Willis
Also, The New York Times鈥� 鈥�,鈥� by Elisabeth Rosenthal
Joanne Kenen: The New Yorker鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� by Nathan Heller
Anna Edney: The New York Times鈥� 鈥�,鈥� by Jesse Drucker, Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Sarah Kliff
Erin Mershon: The Washington Post鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� by William Wan and Carolyn Y. Johnson
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