Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

CNBC: U.S. To Impose 100% Tariff On Branded, Patented Drugs Unless Firms Build Plants Locally, Trump Says President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. will impose a 100% tariff on “any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product” entering the country from Oct. 1. The measure will not apply to companies building drug manufacturing plants in the U.S., Trump said. He added that the exemption covers projects where construction has started, including sites that have broken ground or are under construction. (Jie and Constantino, 9/25)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration Eyes USAID Money To Advance America First Goals The Trump administration, in its latest challenge to Congress’s authority over federal spending, intends to shift almost $2 billion in U.S. foreign aid toward a slate of priorities aimed largely at advancing the president’s “America First” agenda. The plan, which has not been reported previously, was outlined for lawmakers in a document the State Department sent to Capitol Hill on Sept. 12 and later reviewed by The Washington Post. It represents a dramatic rebranding of Washington’s approach to foreign assistance after the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) this year. (Robertson, 9/24)

Politico: White House To Agencies: Prepare Mass Firing Plans For A Potential Shutdown The White House budget office is instructing federal agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans for mass firings during a possible government shutdown, specifically targeting employees who work for programs that are not legally required to continue. The Office of Management and Budget move to permanently reduce the government workforce if there is a shutdown, outlined in a memo shared with POLITICO ahead of release to agencies tonight, escalates the stakes of a potential shutdown next week. (Cai, 9/24)

For a Deeper Dive...

The Hill: Dr. Mehmet Oz Softens Trump's Tylenol Warning For Pregnant Women Dr. Mehmet Oz on Tuesday softened President Trump’s warnings that pregnant women should not take Tylenol due to a largely unproven link to autism. In an interview with TMZ, Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said pregnant women should consult with a physician and use the medication if they have a high fever. (Weixel, 9/24)

Modern Healthcare: 71% Of Regional Nonprofit Insurers Ended 2024 With Operating Loss Threatened by shrinking operating margins, regional nonprofit insurance companies are falling behind their larger competitors, according to a new report. In 2024, 71% of regional nonprofit insurers ended the year with an operating loss, according to an analysis published Wednesday by HealthScape Advisors, a division of the consulting company Chartis. By comparison, 53% posted operating losses in 2023, and just 22% did in 2020. (Tong, 9/25)

The New York Times: Why Obamacare Bills May Double Next Year Earlier this month, Julie Morringello, an artist in rural Maine, received a notice that her health care premiums could nearly double next year. She now pays $460 a month for her Obamacare plan, but that amount is contingent on government subsidies that the Republican-controlled Congress may not extend. (Abelson and Sanger-Katz, 9/24)

ProPublica, The Current: Georgia’s Medicaid Work Requirement Program Spent Twice As Much On Administrative Costs As On Health Care, GAO Says Most of the tax dollars used to launch and implement the nation’s only Medicaid work requirement program have gone toward paying administrative costs rather than covering health care for Georgians, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan agency that monitors federal programs and spending. The government report examined administrative expenses for Georgia Pathways to Coverage, the state’s experiment with work requirements. It follows previous reporting by The Current and ProPublica showing that the program has cost federal and state taxpayers more than $86.9 million while enrolling a tiny fraction of those eligible for free health care. (Coker, 9/24)

KFF Health News: AI Will Soon Have A Say In Approving Or Denying Medicare Treatments Taking a page from the private insurance industry’s playbook, the Trump administration will launch a program next year to find out how much money an artificial intelligence algorithm could save the federal government by denying care to Medicare patients. The pilot program, designed to weed out wasteful, “low-value” services, amounts to a federal expansion of an unpopular process called prior authorization, which requires patients or someone on their medical team to seek insurance approval before proceeding with certain procedures, tests, and prescriptions. (Sausser and Tahir, 9/25)

What is Changing...

The New York Times: F.D.A.’s Approval Of A Drug For Autism Upends Review Process In taking the unusual step of approving an old generic drug as a treatment for autism, the Food and Drug Administration stunned some experts by departing sharply from the agency’s typical standard for reviewing drugs. The drug, leucovorin, has long been used to treat the toxic effects of chemotherapy, but it was endorsed as a therapy for some people with autism by President Trump and top U.S. health officials during a White House briefing on Monday. The move flipped the standard process: Typically, a pharmaceutical company carefully studies a drug, often with input from the F.D.A. on the design of rigorous studies, and then files a formal application for approval. But in this case, the agency said it reviewed medical research and made the approval decision to expand the drug’s use on its own. (Jewett and Mueller, 9/23)

The New York Times: Kennedy Says U.S. Rejects Global Health Goals Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday said the United States would reject a United Nations declaration on chronic diseases, because it ignored “the most pressing health issues,” and more broadly because the Trump administration takes issue with policies that he described as promoting abortion and “radical gender ideology.” Mr. Kennedy, who gave his remarks to a U.N. meeting on preventing and combating chronic illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, did not elaborate on the issues he said had been ignored. (Jacobs, 9/25)

CNN: Mifepristone: Federal Agencies Are Studying Safety Of Abortion Drug, Driving New Concerns About Limits On Access The US Food and Drug Administration is reviewing evidence about the safety and efficacy of one of the drugs used in medication abortion to investigate how it can be safely dispensed, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary wrote in a new letter to 22 Republican attorneys general. Kennedy and Makary said the FDA would conduct “its own review of the evidence, including real-world outcomes and evidence, relating to the safety and efficacy” of mifepristone. (Tirrell, McPhillips and Gumbrecht, 9/25)

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