Health Policy Podcast

The Health Policy Podcast explores how healthcare policy decisions impact patients, providers, costs, and innovation across the U.S. healthcare system. Through interviews with physicians, policy experts, researchers, and industry leaders, the podcast examines the real-world effects of laws, regulations, and market forces shaping healthcare today.

Right to Try 2.0: Jennifer and Maya Reinhardt on Access, Hope, and the Fight for Life-Saving Treatments 03/17/2026

Joel White on Obamacare, Consolidation, and the Case for Market Reform 03/10/2026

The Goldwater Institute’s Brian Norman on “Right to Try 2.0” and the Fight for Individualized Treatments 03/03/2026

Dr. Valerie Fuller: How a proposed federal student loan rule could impact availability of healthcare in the U.S. 02/24/2026

Independent Women Senior Fellow Monique Yohanan: Why America’s Dietary Guidelines Needed a Reset 02/17/2026

Steve Cortes On Make America Healthy Again And The Case For Preventive Health 02/10/2026

Steve Cortes On Make America Healthy Again And The Case For Preventive Health What does it say about a country’s health system when chronic illness becomes normal in childhood? In this episode of the Health Policy Podcast, I sit down with Steve Cortes, former senior advisor to President Trump and a documentary filmmaker, to unpack the thinking behind the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement. Steve argues that the timing is no coincidence. He points to a convergence of troubling indicators, from rising rates of chronic illness among U.S. children to declining life expectancy and a shrinking pool of young adults physically eligible for military service. Taken together, he believes these trends signal a deeper systemic failure rather than isolated public health challenges. We also reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst rather than a cause. According to Steve, the last few years exposed structural weaknesses in the medical establishment and accelerated public skepticism around authority, incentives, and transparency. Our conversation explores how that moment reshaped attitudes toward informed consent, preventive care, and the role of diet and lifestyle in long-term health outcomes. Rather than framing MAHA as a partisan response, Steve positions it as a reaction to data that many policymakers have struggled to confront head-on. We close by discussing Steve’s MAHA documentary and where listeners can watch it. The film shifts the focus away from reactive, late-stage interventions and toward upstream prevention, asking why health systems are so often designed to treat crisis rather than support everyday wellbeing. It is a conversation that challenges assumptions about medicine, policy, and responsibility, and invites a broader rethink of how health is defined and protected in the first place. If the data keeps pointing in the same direction, are we prepared to rethink healthcare before the next crisis forces the issue, and what would that shift actually require? /episode/index/show/67ba99d2-e25c-499b-b451-6df14ecf1b33/id/40055335

Fred Roeder of the Consumer Choice Center: Why Patients Rarely Know the Price of Care Until It’s Too Late 02/03/2026

Jared Rhoads, Director of the Center for Modern Health: Healthcare has Drifted from Free Market Principles 01/27/2026

Ryan Ellis on Obamacare Subsidies, Healthcare Costs, and Accountability 01/20/2026

Ross Marchand on the 340B Drug Program and the Hidden Costs to Patients and Taxpayers 01/20/2026

Introducing the Health Policy Podcast 01/17/2026

Health Policy Podcast

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