President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law on July 4 and now leaders such as Stephanie Carlton are in charge of implementing it. She’s the deputy administrator and chief of staff at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Carlton and the administration see the law’s benefits because Medicaid reimbursement rates “were allowed to go up to commercial rates and states are at varying levels towards that cap. But as we sat back and looked at it and said well, ‘these are providers who are committing to society to vulnerable Americans that they’re going to help with their healthcare needs’…. but paying up to commercial rates kind of changes the focus of the program, where it becomes more about facilities profiting more than making sure patients are taken good care of.”

Carlton also answered questions from hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter shortly before Congress passed the bill. In addition, she discussed how they believe modern technology can help with new Medicaid work requirements, concerns about the National Health Service Corps and the administration’s plans to lower prescription drug costs.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s a lot of attention right now around “super agers.” Yet the facts are that current life expectancy at birth is 74.8 years for males and for females it’s 80.2 years in the U.S.

Does it catch your eye when you hear about predictions we’ll be able to live to 100 and beyond?

Some researchers are throwing cold water on those notions.

“We’ll be lucky if 5% of the age cohort makes it to 100,” says S. Jay Olshansky, Ph.D., Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago. He and his colleagues made headlines when they presented data that humans are approaching a biologically-based limit to life.

Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter ask Olshansky about the implications of this research — for each of us personally and for policymakers — after decades of hearing predictions that life expectancy would continue to go up. Olshanky explains why we should celebrate longer life that has resulted from healthier diets and medical advances but now focus on improving quality of life in later years.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Millions are still living with the effects of Long COVID and new research shows that for older adults, the consequences may be profound and lasting.

In part one of a special two-part series on “Conversations on Health Care,” Dr. Gabriel de Erausquin, a neurologist and leading Long COVID researcher at the University of Texas Health San Antonio, shares groundbreaking findings from his global study of over 3,500 patients. His work reveals a troubling connection: many Long COVID patients over 60 show cognitive decline that mirrors early signs of dementia.

“The parts of the brain that are affected by COVID overlap significantly with those that are affected early in the course of Alzheimer’s….the changes overlap, but they are not identical.”

His team is now studying brain imaging and biomarkers to understand the link between COVID-related cognitive decline and traditional neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. de Erausquin also explains how persistent loss of smell — a hallmark COVID symptom — may be the strongest predictor of ongoing cognitive issues, and how genetic sequencing is helping uncover inherited risk.

He highlights a dual reality: while many Long COVID patients show biological changes, others had prior diagnoses of depression, anxiety, or chronic fatigue — a nuance often missing from public conversations.

Click to hear the full conversation with hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter.

“Originally aired on May 15, 2025”

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.