Margot Sanger-Katz
@sangerkatz
Covering health care metaphors at @nytimes @upshotnyt. Popcorn enthusiast. On Signal: @sangerkatz.01
New: During a meeting with Mods in the WH, Trump told members that if they want to win elections, they shouldn’t touch: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security “But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one member responded to Trump, per 3 sources. notus.org/congress/recon…
Latest for @AP: ICE officials will have access to all 79 million Medicaid enrollees' personal data, including addresses and ethnicities, according to an extraordinary agreement signed on Monday. w/ @kimberlykindy apnews.com/article/immigr…
I'm not under any illusions that anyone cares much about this but for those who are interested here's transcript of my exchange this morning with White House budget chief Russ Vought: Me So I just checked the DOGE website. They claim $190 billion in savings for the American…
NEW: The V.A. was under pressure to slash spending. Then it started to feed @DOGE misleading budget cuts, inflating its progress. nytimes.com/2025/07/14/us/…
Today's Medicare physician payment rule is worth a look--lots of major policy changes.
The ACA was not popular when it passed (remember death panels), but it was more popular than the “ OBBB” is today.
The word was “schlong.”
What word--apparently unprintable in the New York Times--do you think Gary Shteyngart uses to describe his penis?
NEW TONIGHT: @IRS says that churches can now endorse candidates from the pulpit, carving out an exemption to a decades-old ban on politicking by tax-exempt nonprofits. nytimes.com/2025/07/07/us/…
Defenders of Medicaid cuts are misunderstanding a study I worked on statnews.com/2025/07/03/ore… via @statnews
That letter from 16 vulnerable House Republicans — about how they won't vote for the Senate's Medicaid cuts — is a pretty crazy read today. Everyone on this letter voted for the bill. notus.org/congress/the-s…
People often describe the big health care lobbies as all-powerful. But they were largely ineffective this time.
The health policy reforms in OBBB required Congress to overcome fierce opposition from powerful health care special interest groups that profit from the status quo and lobby aggressively to preserve the flow of government subsidies into their coffers.
Read @emilymbadger on how the effort to win Sen. Murkowski's vote means the GOP bill now rewards states with the highest SNAP error rates. nytimes.com/2025/07/02/ups…
For the few years I've been covering jobs reports, and one sector typically rises above the rest, quietly hiring by the thousands: Health care. How taking care of humans became the biggest employer in America, and what it means for the rest of us. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Great story/charts from @lydiadepillis @christinezhang on how health care ate the American economy. This pair of maps is especially striking.
Wisconsin passed a budget in the middle of the night that, among other things, increased provider taxes to the maximum permitted value, so they would be grandfathered before the House votes on reconciliation wpr.org/news/tony-ever…
Interesting analysis from @awgaffney and colleagues on the costs of setting up Medicaid work requirements. They looked at previous state spending per beneficiary. healthaffairs.org/content/forefr…
NEW: Speaker Johnson confirms he’s planning a third GOP reconciliation package for the final quarter of 2026 - as Rs have been eyeing "the plan is to do one in the fall for FY26 budget year and we can also squeeze in a third one for FY27 before this Congress is up,” he says on…
This guy is now working for the DOJ's "weaponization" task force: "As violence erupted, his charging document said, he told other rioters who were attacking law enforcement officers, 'Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!'”