This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Wednesday, July 2nd.

I'm Bridget Bergen from the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom, filling in for Brian today.

For the first time in modern U.S. history,

a president and Congress are advancing policies projected to increase the number of uninsured Americans by the millions.

Alongside the extension of Trump's first-term tax cuts, the reconciliation bill passed Tuesday by the Senate includes deep structural changes to

Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. It would reduce federal Medicaid spending, tighten

eligibility requirements, impose new work rules, and let enhanced subsidies for ACA marketplace plans

expire at the end of the year. According to estimates from the nonpartisan congressional

budget office, those changes could leave as many as 16 million people without health insurance over the

next decade. The bill still needs final action in the House, but if enacted, it would mark a big

shift in the role of the federal government in ensuring health coverage,

rolling back decades of incremental progress in the only developed country in the world without universal health coverage.

To help us understand what's in the bill, how it would work, and what's at stake for patients, states the health care system more broadly,

were joined now by Julie Rovner,

City Chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News, and the host of the podcast,

What the Health?

Hey, Julie, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me.

And Julie, just start us off with what kind of bill is this and what are the major health care provisions tucked inside?

Well, this is what's called a budget reconciliation bill and this happens. This is part of the

budget process that Congress does. We have the annual spending bills that we hear so much about

...