Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

KFF Health News: Watch: RFK Jr. Dismisses All 17 Members Of Vaccine Advisory Committee Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on June 9 he is removing the entire independent committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine usage, claiming members had too many outside conflicts. KFF Health News’ Céline Gounder joined CBS Evening News to discuss what this means for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, known as ACIP. (6/10)

The Hill: Senate Republicans Tip-Toe Around 'Medicaid Cuts 'When is a Medicaid cut not actually a cut?  That’s the $800 billion question facing Senate Republicans as they write their own version of the sweeping House-passed tax and spending bill. Administration officials and senators defending against attacks on the bill have coalesced around a message that there will be no cuts to benefits, and the only people who will lose coverage are the ones who never deserved it to begin with: namely immigrants without legal status and “able-bodied” individuals who shouldn’t be on Medicaid. (Weixel, 6/9)

KFF Health News: In Axing MRNA Contract, Trump Delivers Another Blow To US Biosecurity, Former Officials Say The Trump administration’s cancellation of $766 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines against potential pandemic flu viruses is the latest blow to national defense, former health security officials said. They warned that the U.S. could be at the mercy of other countries in the next pandemic. “The administration’s actions are gutting our deterrence from biological threats,” said Beth Cameron, a senior adviser to the Brown University Pandemic Center and a former director at the White House National Security Council. (Maxmen, 6/6)

For a Deeper Dive...

KFF Health News: Four Ways Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Would Undermine Access To Obamacare Major changes could be in store for the more than 24 million people with health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, including how and when they can enroll, the paperwork required, and, crucially, the premiums they pay. A driver behind these changes is the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the name given to spending and tax legislation designed to advance the policy agenda of President Donald Trump. It passed the House on May 22 and is pending in the Senate. (Appleby, 6/11)

KFF Health News: Kennedy’s HHS Sent Congress ‘Junk Science’ To Defend Vaccine Changes, Experts Say A document the Department of Health and Human Services sent to lawmakers to support Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to change U.S. policy on covid vaccines cites scientific studies that are unpublished or under dispute and mischaracterizes others. One health expert called the document “willful medical disinformation” about the safety of covid vaccines for children and pregnant women. (Fortiér, 6/13)

Roll Call: Kennedy's Vaccine Panel Contains Skeptics, Nonspecialists Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday announced eight members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, populated mainly by critics of the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine policies or those who don’t specialize in vaccine science. (DeGroot, Raman and Hellmann, 6/11)

The Hill: Senators Grill NIH Director In Budget Hearing: 4 Takeaways National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya faced questions from senators during an Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, as the federal government agency has taken hits to its staffing levels and grant-making ability since under President Trump. Senators focused on the Trump administration’s requested 2026 budget, which calls for cutting NIH’s funding by $18 billion from 2025 levels. (O’Connell-Domenech, 6/10)

Politico: How Trump Broke The Politics Of Medicaid Medicaid provides health insurance for nearly 80 million people but was long the electoral forgotten sibling of Social Security and Medicare. It’s clear in the ads: TV ads for House and Senate races last election cycle were 26 times as likely to mention Medicare, the health care program for seniors, as Medicaid, according to a POLITICO analysis of transcripts from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising. But that’s already changing. “I saw elections 16 years ago where people ran on cutting Medicaid, and there were folks who were on Medicaid who were in the crowd cheering them on,” said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2028. “That’s not the case of where we are today.” (Piper, Schneider and Otterbein, 6/9)

The Washington Post: Trump Tax Bill Reveals Striking Shift In GOP’s Focus The sweeping tax legislation Republicans in Congress are trying to send to President Donald Trump to sign into law underscores a striking evolution in the party’s economic agenda: away from tax policy that prioritizes economic growth and toward populist giveaways inspired by Trump’s campaign promises. House Republicans last month approved a $2.4 trillion proposal that included attention-grabbing provisions such as exempting tips and overtime pay from income taxes and a new deduction for seniors. The bill’s cornerstone, making up the vast majority of its price tag, is the permanent extension of the individual cuts from the 2017 GOP tax law, which lowered rates across income brackets. (Stein, 6/9)

What is Changing...

The Washington Post: As Disasters Loom, Emergency Managers Say They Aren’t Counting On FEMA Preparation for the unknown was always in Alan Harris’s job description as emergency manager for Seminole County, Florida, where thousands of homes suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ian in 2022. But as hurricane season begins this year, there is a fresh layer of uncertainty to contend with. The Trump administration has declared a desire to reshape a federal disaster response system widely considered to be too complicated and winding, and has already taken steps to upend it. Hundreds of Federal Emergency Management Agency veterans have left the agency, and those who remain will no longer go door to door in search of disaster victims who need financial aid, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. (Dance and Dennis, 6/8)

CBS News: FDA Food Inspector Vacancies Near 20% After Trump Hiring Freeze Nearly 1 in 5 positions across the Food and Drug Administration's human food inspection divisions are now vacant, multiple agency officials tell CBS News, in the wake of departures encouraged by the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts and a government-wide hiring freeze that had stalled efforts to replenish their ranks. While the FDA has long struggled with hiring and retaining qualified investigators to inspect food producers and distributors, multiple federal health officials... say that the staffing gap has worsened due to early retirements and resignations. (Tin, 6/6)

Politico: CDC Backtracks On Layoffs, Rehires More Than 400 People The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reinstating more than 400 people who had received layoff notices, according to an email from CDC leadership to employees seen by POLITICO. The rehiring, announced internally Wednesday, marks the largest number of employees that the agency has asked back to date. (Gardner, 6/11)

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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