Last week, the Trump administration made a pair of announcements related to the country’s health.

First, the good news is that life expectancy rose for the first time in four years to 78.7 years in 2018, from 78.6 the previous year. A large part of the reason for the rise in life expectancy is that opioid overdose deaths declined by 4.1% in 2018. This was the first decline since the opioid overdose crisis began in the 1990’s.

The second announcement, however, brought bad news. The White House plans to cut Medicaid funding. Medicaid provides health insurance coverage to one in five low income Americans.

Sam Pizzigati, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, joined The Real News Network to discuss the implications of these two major healthcare announcements.

The original interview, along with a transcript, is available at The Real News Network.