POLITICO's Pulse Check

Donald Trump's historic victory will lead to sweeping changes in America's politics and policy. That may start with health care: Trump has repeatedly pledged to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare. And he's got a GOP-led Congress to help him do it. But two influential figures — on opposite sides of the political spectrum — say the president-elect's rhetoric is about to collide with harsh real...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twelve days before the election, and more than six years after it passed, Obamacare remains one of the most divisive issues in American politics. But why are voters so far apart, and where do opinions on health reform *really* stand? Harvard's Bob Blendon has the answers. Blendon, one of the most influential figures in public polling, is now working with POLITICO on a series of polls about health...

Andy Slavitt is one of the most influential people in health care. He's also one of the busiest: The head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has a long to-do list — and just 93 days left to do it. Back on PULSE CHECK by popular demand, Slavitt talks about Medicare's landmark physician payment law, which was finalized on Friday (starts at the 5:00 mark), Obamacare open enrollment (20:...

Bijan Salehizadeh enrolled at Columbia Medical School with the goal of becoming a hotshot cardiac surgeon. Just a few years later, he'd traded the operating room for the boardrooms of venture capital, where he became known as one of Silicon Valley's smartest health care investors. Now the managing director of Arlington, Va.-based NaviMed Capital — the rare "V.C. in D.C." — Bijan joined POLITICO's...

Health Affairs is one of the most important platforms in health care. No health policy journal gets cited more often — just ask Chief Justice John Roberts, who referenced it when issuing his pivotal Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare. And no journal has done more to chronicle the industry’s transformation, with a steady stream of blog posts, podcasts, and events that supplement its traditional peer...

More than 47,000 people died from opioid-related causes in 2014. More deaths than from gun violence. More deaths than from car crashes. And the top job of fighting opioid abuse — of setting the nation's drug policy — is on the shoulders of this week's guest, Michael Botticelli. Botticelli joined POLITICO's "Pulse Check" podcast to discuss how he approaches drug policy (starts at the 2:20 mark), wh...

Obamacare rates are going up 25 percent and insurers are dropping out. It's been a rough few months for the law — and pundits' doom-and-gloom predictions are only making Anne Filipic's job harder. Filipic is president of Enroll America, the non-profit group dedicated to boosting Obamacare enrollment, and she says that the reality on the ground is much more positive than the picture painted in D.C....

Aneesh Chopra has a lot of titles. He was the nation's first Chief Technology Officer, under President Obama. He's been a venture capitalist, a consultant, an entrepreneur and an author. And according to David Axelrod, Chopra is an evangelist for the power of “digitizing information” — especially in health care. Chopra joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to reminisce about what they learned at the Advis...

Insurers like Aetna are dropping out. Rate requests are on the rise. It’s been a messy few weeks for Obamacare — and it’s Kevin Counihan’s job to clean it up. After Obamacare's exchanges sputtered to launch in 2013, Counihan was hired as marketplace CEO to make sure that a management mistake like that never happened again. But with major players like Aetna and UnitedHealth mostly walking away, and...

At the start of 2015, Marilyn Tavenner held one of the most important jobs in health care: Implementing Obamacare, as the head of CMS. Six months later, she'd swapped it for a completely different major role: Lobbying to change Obamacare, as the head of America's Health Insurance Plans. It's an unusual career shift, and it's given Tavenner — a long-time government official turned top lobbyist — a...

As a top adviser to the Rubio campaign, Lanhee Chen fought Donald Trump's stampede through the primaries. Now he's coming to terms with the movement reshaping the Republican party — but that doesn't mean he's happy about it. Chen joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to discuss his growing career as a TV pundit (starts at the 1:50 mark), what he learned as the policy director of the 2012 Romney-Ryan campa...

The politics of health care are messy. Obamacare is haunted by myths. And that's why Harvard's Kate Baicker — a former White House economist and one of the nation's most acclaimed researchers — is so focused on using evidence, not anecdotes, to shape America's health policies. Baicker talks about building a career in research (starts at the 1:55 minute mark), her pioneering work with the Oregon He...

Lamar Alexander is one of the most consequential legislators in Washington. The Tennessee Republican leads the Senate HELP committee — arguably the most important congressional committee for health care right now — and he's working to pass major bills on mental health, opioids and biomedical innovation and more. Sen. Alexander joined POLITICO’s Dan Diamond to discuss how his education background i...

House Republicans say they finally have a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare — six years after the Affordable Care Act passed. And Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who wrote Sen. John McCain’s health plan in 2008 and now runs the American Action Forum, insists we need to take it seriously. Holtz-Eakin joined POLITICO’s Dan Diamond to make the case for the GOP’s white paper (starts at the 3:00 mark), what co...

Medicare's planned Part B pilot is either a necessary fix to a broken drug payment system — or the first step to President Donald Trump dismantling the Affordable Care Act. It all depends whom you ask. And this week, we asked Peter Bach and Ted Okon — a high-profile proponent and opponent of Medicare's pilot, respectively — to make their case. Bach joined Dan Diamond to discuss why drug spending h...

Peter Hotez has fought hookworm in Africa, demystified Ebola fears in America, and worked to eradicate many other infectious diseases over his storied thirty-year career. Now the Houston-based public health leader is confronting Zika — and he's worried that the Gulf Coast is in line for a financial and human disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Hotez joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to dis...

Growing up, Karen DeSalvo never planned to have one of the nation’s most important health care jobs. Now she has two of them. As National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, she’s the White House’s point person on digitizing health care — and as acting Assistant Secretary for Health, she also helps guide the nation's public health strategy. Dr. DeSalvo joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to d...

The nation's top infectious disease doctor doesn't scare easy. But Tom Frieden — the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — is deeply worried about the rise of Zika virus, which is spreading across the Americas and causing birth defects in babies. And he's shocked that Congress, which has refused to fund the White House's emergency Zika request, doesn't share his concern.   Dr. F...

Only a few people know what it's like to lead the White House's response to a public health crisis. Ron Klain is one of them. He was chosen in 2014 by President Obama to steer the U.S. effort to fight Ebola, just when it looked like the outbreak was about to spiral out of control.   Ron joined POLITICO's Dan Diamond to explain how he became the U.S. Ebola "czar" (starts at the 2:00 mark), why he t...

Pick a health care battle in D.C. over the past three decades. Chip Kahn's been at the center of it — first as a top insurance lobbyist, then as a key Capitol Hill staffer, and now as the head of the Federation of American Hospitals. Chip sat down with POLITICO's Dan Diamond to talk about how he shaped the infamous "Harry and Louise" ad campaign (starts at the 3:10 mark), what it takes to be an ef...

Farzad Mostashari has been on the frontlines of health care's biggest stories — from New York City's war on smoking to the Obama administration's $30 billion push for electronic health records. Now he's the CEO of Aledade, a fast-growing company that blends digital and population health and riding the wave of Obamacare startups.  Farzad sat down with POLITICO's Dan Diamond to discuss his beginning...

Where's health care headed? No one knows better than Andy Slavitt, who runs Medicare and Medicaid — the nearly $1 trillion gorilla that shapes the industry — and who runs point on implementing Obamacare. Andy sat down with POLITICO's Dan Diamond to explain what it's like to lead one of the government's biggest agencies (starts at the 2:00 mark), how he got into health care and his efforts to demys...

Introducing POLITICO's new health policy and politics podcast — Pulse Check, hosted by Dan Diamond! Subscribe to this feed for the latest updates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices