Inside America’s Health Engine: Expanding Access and Equity with Chiquita Brooks-LaSure

About this episode

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure discusses the challenges and progress in America's health care system, focusing on access, equity, and the impact of the Affordable Care Act.

What does it take to make health care work for everyone? In this episode of Policy Punchline, former CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure joins Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27 to reflect on her years leading the agency that runs Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and HealthCare.gov for more than 160 million Americans. We explore how the U.S. achieved historic coverage gains under the Affordable Care Act and why maintaining that progress has proved so fragile. Brooks-LaSure reflects on the constant tension between innovation and cost control, the bureaucratic frictions that still leave millions without care, and the deeper question of who should bear responsibility for the social conditions that shape health. She offers a frank look at the limits of reform in a system constrained by politics, paperwork, and inequity, before turning to America’s maternal health crisis and her drive to embed equity at the core of CMS policy amid efforts to roll back years of progress. This interview, conducted by Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27, is part of the Policy Punchline podcast series. Supported by Princeton’s Julius Rabinowitz Center for Public…

People in this episode

Hosts: Alice McCarthy, Aiko Offner

Guest: Chiquita Brooks-LaSure

Topics covered

• health care access
• health equity
• Affordable Care Act
• maternal health crisis
• CMS policy
• health care reform

Keywords

• health care
• equity
• Medicare
• Medicaid
• CHIP
• HealthCare.gov
• coverage gains
• reform
• maternal health
• social conditions

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CMS, Affordable Care Act, Princeton University

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