Julie Rovner

Julie Rovner is a health policy correspondent for NPR specializing in the politics of health care.

Reporting on all aspects of health policy and politics, Rovner covers the White House, Capitol Hill, the Department of Health and Human Services in addition to issues around the country. She served as NPR's lead correspondent covering the passage and implementation of the 2010 health overhaul bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Additionally, Rovner is a contributing editor for National Journal Daily, a publication covering Capitol Hill.

A noted expert on health policy issues, Rovner is the author of a critically-praised reference book Health Care Politics and Policy A-Z. Rovner is also co-author of the book Managed Care Strategies 1997, and has contributed to several other books, including two chapters in Intensive Care: How Congress Shapes Health Policy, edited by political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann.

In 2005, Rovner was awarded the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for distinguished reporting of Congress for her coverage of the passage of the Medicare prescription drug law and its aftermath.

Rovner has appeared on television on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, C-Span, MSNBC, and NOW with Bill Moyers. Her articles have appeared in dozens of national newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post, USA Today, Modern Maturity, and The Saturday Evening Post.

Prior to NPR, Rovner covered health and human services for the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, specializing in health care financing, abortion, welfare, and disability issues. Later she covered health reform for the Medical News Network, an interactive daily television news service for physicians, and provided analysis and commentary on the health reform debates in Congress for NPR. She has been a regular contributor to the British medical journal The Lancet. Her columns on patients' rights for the magazine Business and Health won her a share of the 1999 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award.

An honors graduate, Rovner has a degree in political science from University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

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6:34pm

Thu May 12, 2011

4:33pm

Wed May 11, 2011
Shots - Health Blog

You Really Are Paying A Lot More For Health Care

Credit Ricardo Reitmeyer / iStockphoto.com

OK, health care is expensive. And the costs keep going up.

But the latest report from the green-eyeshade experts at Milliman does include a few surprises about what is — and isn't — driving those costs higher.

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12:01am

Wed May 11, 2011
Health Care

Appeals Court Hears Challenges To Health Care Law

A three-judge panel in Richmond, Va., heard Tuesday oral arguments in two cases challenging the constitutionality of the nation's landmark health care law.

It marked the first time any of the dozens of lawsuits filed against last year's law have reached the appellate level, and brings the measure a step closer to what most predict will be a legal showdown that will only end at the Supreme Court sometime in 2012.

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3:11pm

Thu May 5, 2011
Shots - Health Blog

Medicare Shuffle For House Republicans?

After two weeks of House Republicans getting hammered over their vote for a fiscal 2012 budget that would effectively privatize Medicare, it didn't seem all the surprising that some party leaders would signal that they were backing away from the plan.

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12:01am

Thu May 5, 2011
Politics

Plan Would Trade Medicaid Funds For Flexibility

Most of the debate about the budget plan passed by House Republicans last month centers on the dramatic changes it would make to the Medicare health program for seniors. But the proposal calls for potentially even bigger changes to the Medicaid program for the poor.

Medicaid actually covers more people than Medicare. In 2010, according to the most recent estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services, Medicaid covered 53.9 million people, compared to Medicare's 47.3 million.

Medicaid's patients are also among the most vulnerable in society.

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