Massive cuts to medical research and Medicaid. Waves of layoffs across the Department of Health and Human Services. Ongoing uncertainty around federal subsidies to buy health insurance on Affordable Care Act marketplaces. 2025 has been a rough year for federal health programs.
But meanwhile, in the states, there were some wins for health care access. “An Arm and a Leg” host Dan Weissmann examines how lawmakers from across the political spectrum accomplished meaningful reforms. This episode takes listeners to Nebraska, which instituted aggressive new restrictions on prior authorization, and Virginia, where lawmakers banned wage garnishment and capped interest rates for certain medical debts.
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Transcript: A Few Good Things From 2025 (Really)
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Dan: Hey there, you don’t need me to tell you. 2025 has been a lot.
I mean, just with health care: As I record this, the US government has been shut down for more than a month over whether to extend health insurance subsidies that more than 20 million people rely on.
I mean, if Congress resolves this tomorrow– and I’m not holding my breath–it’s still gonna be a huge mess.
And I could definitely go on. But I’m not gonna do that.
Instead, I’ve been spending my time these last few weeks looking at what’s happened this year that didn’t suck and what we can learn from that.
And it turns out, at the state level, there’s a lot to look at.
All over the country, state governments took action this year to make things suck a little less — on things like medical debt and health insurance and the …