Tradeoffs

12/09/2025

Federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans are scheduled to shrink next year. Many shoppers are expected to be priced out of the market, leaving those who stay with higher premiums. How did we get here?

https://tradeoffs.org/2025/09/11/obamacare-premiums-are-about-to-soar-howd-we-get-here/

11/09/2025

Buying your own health insurance in America has always been expensive and confusing. Without intervention from Congress, next year is shaping up to be worse on both counts.

Premiums will increase by 20%, on average, for shoppers in insurance markets created by the Affordable Care Act, an analysis by policy nonprofit KFF recently found. The soaring expense is expected to drive millions to drop coverage.

Insurers say they expect to lose many healthy customers, and they are raising premiums for sicker consumers who remain. New prices may be too high for some people, even those who see the risks in going uninsured.

“I know I'm basically gambling with my life each year that I'm going without insurance,” said Nance Schick, a small business owner who is debating if she can afford to keep her coverage.

Tradeoffs spoke with Schick and Jonathan Kolstad, a professor at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Listen to the story here:

https://tradeoffs.org/2025/09/11/obamacare-premiums-are-about-to-soar-howd-we-get-here/

08/09/2025

Health care workers say the shock and awe campaign of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy is already threatening patients’ health.

Trump’s early actions include reversing a long-standing policy that kept federal immigration agents out of medical facilities.

This flurry of activity has stoked fear among the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., as well as their families, friends and neighbors who are in the country legally.

Listen to the full episode here:

Health care providers are scrambling to cut through their undocumented patients’ panic about President Trump’s new immigration policies.

06/09/2025

Federal health officials are piloting a new program that's funneling funding into institutional care. Medicaid agencies in 16 states and Washington, D.C. have joined this effort.

Proponents of the approach argue that mental institutions offer important short-term, stabilizing care that’s become far too hard to find. But critics note there’s scant evidence that these highly restrictive institutions improve people’s health, and some facilities have a troubling track record of waste, abuse and neglect.

Listen to the full episode:

As states struggle to meet the needs of people with serious mental illness, some are signing on to a federal pilot project that’s pouring new funding into institutional care.

05/09/2025

As states struggle to meet the needs of people with serious mental illness, some are signing on to a federal pilot project that’s funneling new funding into institutional care.

Listen to the episode: https://tradeoffs.org/2025/09/04/federal-experiment-pouring-money-into-mental-hospitals/

04/09/2025

What should be done to help the many people struggling with serious mental illness who are languishing in jails, overcrowded emergency rooms and other places ill-equipped to help them?

As states struggle to meet the needs of people with serious mental illness, some are signing on to a federal pilot project that’s funneling new funding into institutional care.

So far, Medicaid agencies in 16 states and Washington, D.C., have partnered with the federal government in an experiment designed to give people in crisis better places to go. But the project, begun in 2018, during President Trump’s first term, comes with a controversial twist: The bulk of the experiment’s hundreds of millions in funding is pouring into mental institutions.

Tradeoffs looked into the promise and perils of institutional care, and how this particular federal project hopes to address them:

https://tradeoffs.org/2025/09/04/federal-experiment-pouring-money-into-mental-hospitals/

02/09/2025

Health care workers say the shock and awe campaign of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy is already threatening patients’ health.

Trump’s early actions include reversing a long-standing policy that kept federal immigration agents out of medical facilities. This flurry of activity has stoked fear among the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., as well as their families, friends and neighbors who are in the country legally.

Doctors, nurses, researchers and advocates say that fear is keeping some people from seeking medical care, and they worry about the negative health impacts on children and adults.

Listen to the episode here: https://tradeoffs.org/2025/02/20/getting-health-care-undocumented-immigrants-trumps-america/

30/08/2025

Penn experts warned that a new HHS vaccine policy mandating placebo trials is unethical, misleading, and could undermine public health and vaccine confidence.

Watch Tradeoffs and University of Pennsylvania vaccine authorities discuss new rules for vaccine approvals in May:

Penn experts warn that a new HHS vaccine policy mandating placebo trials is unethical, misleading, and could undermine public health and vaccine confidence.

29/08/2025

In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shocked many people when he dismissed the entire panel of experts who advise the government on vaccinations and, two days later, replaced them with eight advisors more to his liking.

Learn more about why the members of that committee are so important:

The Health and Human Services chief’s latest action on vaccinations is unprecedented, and quickly drew condemnation from medical groups who said his dismissal of the vaccine advisory committee put public health at risk. Here’s why the members of that committee are so important.

28/08/2025

Worrying about deportation can literally make people sick. Health care providers are scrambling to cut through their undocumented patients’ panic about President Trump’s new immigration policies.

How could these immigration policies affect people’s health? And how are providers trying to help their patients in this moment?

Listen to the episode where Tradeoffs talked with more than a dozen people who provide care to undocumented immigrants, or study their health.

Health care providers are scrambling to cut through their undocumented patients’ panic about President Trump’s new immigration policies.

26/08/2025

How did one company gamify health insurance?

Listen about how an organization turned to a game to get employees to debate and decide together what health care they value:
https://tradeoffs.org/2024/09/05/game-health-insurance/

25/08/2025

Within weeks of returning to the White House earlier this year, President Trump took new action on price transparency in health care.

This push for hospitals and insurers to make their prices public was a policy priority of Trump’s first term, but his work has hit some big snags.

Read or listen about about why this effort to empower consumers with better pricing data has proved so vexing:
https://tradeoffs.org/2024/12/19/trump-price-transparency-rules/