In the beginning, there was Obamacare. Since January, weve seen repeal and replace, repeal and repair, a draft American Health Care Act, a near-vote in the house, two new amendments, an actual vote in the house, and now whispers about the Senates rewrite, which should become public any day now.

Its just one of 2017s little surprises that when were feeling overwhelmed and confused, Twitter can be the cure. (Im still trying to process that, but it seems to be true.) If you follow a few knowledgeable folks, youll be able to keep track of whats actually happeningnot just with attempts to pass Trumpcare, but also the ways our current administration is sabotaging the Obamacare markets to manufacture a crisis. Here are my top picks:

Andy Slavitt knows more than probably anyone else about how Obamacare workshe was in charge of it for most of two years, as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Since Trump took office, Slavitt has dedicated his time to demystifying health care policy for the public. Hell speak at a town hall if your Republican congressperson wont hold one. And, most usefully for us, hes a great source of insider information on what lawmakers are talking about right now. Hes also on top of picking out obscure details of health care policy and explaining what their real-world effects will be.

Dan Diamond is a reporter for Politico, writing their daily Pulse newsletter about health policy and hosting the Pulse Check podcast. His feed is a good way to keep on top of health-related political newsincluding plenty of links from Politico, of course. A specialty of Diamonds is the brief, pithy statistic, like so:

Topher Spiro was part of the team that drafted the Affordable Care Act. Hes now the vice president for health policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank that publishes lots of analysis on whats going on with Obamacare and what could happen with Trumpcare. For example, theyre the folks who estimated people with cancer could end up paying $140,000 extra per year in premiums. Spiro keeps us up to date on analysis like this, and is another great source of threads that explain policy details in terms of what will happen in real life.

Kliff writes about health policy for Vox. On Twitter, she gives a big-picture view of health care laws across the country: not just Obamacare and Trumpcare, but also whats going on in state legislatures. She also shares a ton of explainers and maps from Vox and elsewhere.

Cox is the associate director of the Kaiser Family Foundation, where her job is figuring out how the ACA affects private insurance and their enrollees. If youve got insurance through your job and think the ACA didnt affect you because youre not on Obamacare, you need to read the kind of stuff Cox is talking about. Right now, thats the stability of insurance markets: Anthem may pull out of a lot of markets, leaving people in many areas with no insurer, because the Trump administration has threatened to cut off some of the ACAs mandated funding.

Following these people may not reduce your total intake of health care doom and gloom (and thats a bipartisan statement; everybody hates something about health policy these days), but theyll help you keep up on the important details that tend to get buried in news stories.

PS. Im sure I missed some great follows; please share your favorites in the comments so we can all learn together.

Read the original:

Follow These People on Twitter to Understand What's Happening With Health Care - Lifehacker