Gregg's Top Four Health Policy Articles

If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Four...

The New York Times: Key Republican Senator Says He Will Support Erica Schwartz For C.D.C. Director President Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention won the support of a crucial Republican on Thursday after a page on the agency’s website about vaccines and autism was modified to address his objections. (Stolberg, 7/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Medical Billing Arbitration Paid Out $15 Billion To Providers In Surprise Bill Disputes A controversial process for arbitrating medical billing disputes awarded nearly $15 billion in payouts to healthcare providers last year, according to new federal data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, more than triple the total for 2024. Doctor groups representing radiologists, anesthesiologists and emergency-room physicians have been among the winners under the setup, which was created under a 2020 law meant to protect patients from surprise medical bills. Insurers have to make the awarded payouts, and they have generally ended up on the losing end since arbitration began four years ago. (Mathews and McGinty, 7/22)

MedPage Today: HHS Changes Two Vaccine Committee Charters HHS has altered the charters of two vaccine-related committees: the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) and the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC). The timing isn't unusual, as both charters are up for renewal, said Richard Hughes IV, JD, MPH, the attorney leading the American Academy of Pediatrics' lawsuit against HHS changes to vaccine policy. (Fiore, 7/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Trump Administration Freezes Medicaid Funding To California The Trump administration has frozen more than $867 million in California Medicaid dollars over “suspected fraud,” U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday. Kennedy, alongside Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz, did not provide specific examples or evidence of fraud when they announced the move but said the administration paused reimbursements because of “questionable spending.” The administration also froze more than $200 million of Medicaid funds in Minnesota, another Democratic-led state that has become a regular target of Trump funding freezes. (DiNatale, 7/21)

For a Deeper Dive...

The New York Times: Trump’s Plan For Science: More Money For A.I., Less For Universities President Trump’s science adviser told lawmakers on Wednesday that the Trump administration intended to drastically overhaul the country’s approach to scientific research, including by shifting research funding away from universities toward individual researchers and private companies. At a House hearing, Michael Kratsios echoed points he laid out in a report released Tuesday, titled “Science: A New Golden Age.” He said the administration would prioritize artificial intelligence, robotics and nuclear energy while reducing the government’s focus on what he called “life sciences.” (Flavelle and Stolberg, 7/22)

The Washington Post: 1.5 Million Children Lost Food Aid Since Last July, Analysis Says More than 4 million people nationwide were dropped from the federal food assistance program known as SNAP from July 2025 through March, according to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a nonpartisan think tank. (Martinez, 7/21)

Stat: What Keeps 24% Of Workers In Jobs They Don't Like? Health Insurance An increasing number of adults are slogging through jobs they don’t like solely because they don’t want to lose their health insurance. This phenomenon — known as “job lock” — has existed in the U.S. workforce for decades. The worry of losing health benefits inhibits the ability for people, especially those with more health problems or complex conditions, to switch jobs or careers. Economists have also said job lock prevents people from starting their own businesses. (Herman, 7/22)

Stat: FDA Panel Backs Compounded BPC-157, KPV Peptides In Win For RFK Jr. In a win for peptide proponents and for health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommended on Thursday that compounding pharmacies be allowed to manufacture the drugs BPC-157, KPV, TB-500, and MOTS-c. The FDA panel will vote on additional compounds on Friday. (Todd and Lawrence, 7/23)

The Hill: $5.56B Recovered, 1,200 Barred In HHS Fraud Crackdown The federal watchdog for the Department of Health and Human Services generated $5.56 billion in expected recoveries and projected savings over a six-month period, according to a report issued Monday, and barred just over 1,200 individuals and companies from federal programs. The HHS Office of Inspector General, in a semiannual report to Congress, said it returned $12.70 for every dollar it spent between October 2025 through March 2026. The Trump administration often cites rampant waste, fraud and abuse as justification for deep program cuts. (Weixel, 7/13)

MedPage Today: HHS Agency Cuts Dozens Of Grants The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) cut dozens of grants last week, issuing what appeared to be batch termination notices to researchers. Termination letters shared with MedPage Today and posted online had similar wording, noting that AHRQ "is adjusting its discretionary health services research award portfolio in order to better prioritize agency resources." (Fiore, 7/20)

KFF Health News: Doctors ‘Cringe’ At Possibility Of Documenting Which Medicaid Enrollees Too Sick To Work Alice Thornton has spent more than two decades treating people living with HIV in Lexington, Kentucky. Her team tends to “cringe” anytime they hear about patients having to fill out lots of paperwork, like when applying for Social Security Disability payments, because it can be a difficult, burdensome process. (Whitehead, 7/20)

The Washington Post: Exclusive: FDA Raised Conflict Of Interest Concerns Ahead Of New Peptide Panel  As the Trump administration was assembling a key panel to review a slate of controversial peptides, FDA officials expressed concerns about appointing those who worked for peptide-related businesses and clinics, according to two individuals familiar with the matter. The Food and Drug Administration said such members could represent potential conflicts of interest, the individuals said. Despite the flags, officials from the Department of Health and Human Services selected multiple people who promote peptides or work for companies that sell peptides to the panel, an unusual process given FDA staff typically choose their own advisers, said one of the individuals, along with another person familiar with the matter. Those people, like several others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. (Roubein, 7/17)

KFF Health News: Insurers Hedge On Trump-Backed Pledge To Improve Denials Process One year after the Trump administration announced that dozens of health insurers had signed a six-part pledge promising to reduce barriers to doctor-recommended care, some insurers now say they won’t implement all the promised initiatives. Meanwhile, patients, their advocates, and clinicians say little has improved. “It has never been this bad for patients,” said U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), a physician who co-chairs the GOP Doctors Caucus. (Sausser and Rayasam, 7/17)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Proposes 1.7% Medicare Physician Pay Cut For 2027 Physicians would see a small Medicare pay cut next year under a proposed rule the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued Tuesday. The conversion factor of the Physician Fee Schedule — the key multiplier that determines payment amounts for specific services — would decline 1.7% to $32.84 for most doctors and 1.2% to $33.17 for physicians participating in Medicare’s advanced alternative payment models. This partly reflects the expiration of a one-year reimbursement bump enacted in President Donald Trump’s tax law. (Young, 7/14)

MedPage Today: Primary Care Needs More Attention And Investment, CMS Officials Say Healthcare payers, including the federal government, aren't investing enough in primary care, said experts during a conference sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) on Tuesday. Without that investment, there are "consequences in terms of [detecting] disease and initiating lifestyle change, and consequences in the chronic disease burden that we see in America," including obesity, said Abe Sutton, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. (Frieden, 7/14)

For the Visual Among Us...

A few years ago I started a weekly e-mail for friends and colleagues who want to keep up on major federal health policy developments but did not have time to plod through all the minutiae--they were busy doing important things like running organizations and taking care of patients! Much to my surprise, it became pretty popular. I have now converted to a weekly newsletter format so you can manage your own subscription preferences and forward to others that might be interested.

These summaries represent my judgement on health policy issues that may not on the front pages, but are relevant to clinicians, administrators, and educators. I monitor many news sources and clipping services to identify content for this newsletter and I try hard to be as factual, balanced, and non-partisan as possible. While the articles are written by others (with credit attributed), the choice of what to include is entirely mine. If you are interested in receiving a daily summary of health policy news, you might consider signing up for the KHN Morning Briefing. If you enjoy podcasts, I suggest What the Health? and Tradeoffs.

-Gregg S. Margolis, PhD