Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

Stat: RFK Jr. Likely To Be HHS Secretary After Winning Cassidy's Support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to win confirmation to head the Department of Health and Human Services after his nomination cleared the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday and a key Republican senator assented to his confirmation. (Wilkerson, Cueto, Zhang and Lawrence, 2/4)

The Washington Post: Health Agencies Told To Rank Some Workers As Fear Of Layoffs Grows Leaders across the Department of Health and Human Services have been told urgently to rank thousands of their employees who are in probationary periods, with some managers bracing for layoffs of staff members who have been identified as less essential, according to eight people with knowledge of the matter and emails obtained by The Washington Post. The anxieties have been heightened at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where officials were told to rank 10 percent of their probationary staff as mission-critical, 50 percent as important and 40 percent as not mission-critical, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal. (Diamond, Sun and Davies, 2/6)

The New York Times: Trump Administration To Lay Off Nearly All Of USAID Staff The Trump administration plans to reduce the number of workers at the U.S. Agency for International Development from more than 10,000 to about 290 positions, three people with knowledge of the plans said on Thursday. he small remaining staff includes employees who specialize in health and humanitarian assistance, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to publicly discuss the cuts. (Demirjian and Kavi, 2/6)

For a Deeper Dive...

NBC News: Health Clinics Face Cuts, Closures As Trump's Funding Fight Ripples Outside Of Washington In West Virginia, a nonprofit mental health program for teenage girls is turning to a private donor to help cover its expenses. Three Virginia health clinics have shut their doors. And a network of health centers in rural Mississippi is facing a deficit of $500,000 and may have to scale back services. Across the country, health clinics and nonprofit organizations largely serving rural and low-income patients have found themselves unable to access previously allocated federal funds, as a short-lived government funding freeze has continued to disrupt daily operations for a range of programs. (Pettypiece and Harris, 2/7)

The New York Times: Senate Confirms Russell Vought As Office Of Management And Budget Director The Senate voted along party lines on Thursday to confirm Russell T. Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, putting in place one of the most powerful architects of President Trump’s agenda to upend the federal bureaucracy and slash spending that the administration thinks is wasteful. In speeches, Mr. Vought made clear that he relished the opportunity to overhaul the ranks of career federal workers that Mr. Trump views as part of the “deep state.” (Rappeport, 2/6)

Fierce Healthcare: Hospitals' Strong December Caps A Year Of Improving Operating Margins The past year was a step in the right direction for the hospital industry as outpatient revenue and below-inflation expense increases fueled a 9% year-over-year increase in 12-month operating margins. The new numbers from advisory firm Kaufman Hall run through December and reflect operating data from 1,300 hospitals nationwide as collected by Syntellis Performance Solutions. (Muoio, 2/6)

Bloomberg: Elon Musk’s DOGE Team Mines For Fraud At Medicare And Medicaid Agency CMS Elon Musk’s team at the Department of Government Efficiency has been on-site at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to mine key systems for examples of what they consider fraud or waste, according to a person familiar with the matter. The DOGE representatives have gained access to payment and contracting systems, according to the person, who asked not to be named discussing internal matters. They have also been working to cancel diversity, equity and inclusion-focused contracts at CMS and more broadly across the Department of Health and Human Services, the person said, including with organizations like Deloitte. (Griffin and Muller, 2/5)

Becker's Hospital Review: Medicare's 2025 Physician Pay Cut, Explained As of Jan. 1, Medicare is paying physicians almost 3% less than last year for services provided to the country's 66 million Medicare patients. The decreased payments aren't a surprise or anything new, as CMS, by law, must keep physician payments budget neutral (cannot raise total Medicare spending by more than $20 million in a year). As a result, since 2020, Medicare has cut physician pay each year, despite rising costs for physicians to run their practices. Congress has introduced special legislation four times since 2020 to try to roll back the pay cut, and this year is no different. (Asin, 2/5)

Axios: Black Maternal Mortality Rate Isn't Improving, CDC Data Shows The mortality rate for Black mothers in the U.S. has not improved, per data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pregnancy-related death rate for Black women is more than three times the rate for mothers of other racial and ethnic groups. (Mallenbaum, 2/6)

Time: Trump's Cabinet Will Have These Powers Over Abortion While serving as Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi supported restrictions on abortion, such as mandatory waiting periods. And during her Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, Bondi said she has “always been pro-life.” ... Experts say she could take steps to restrict abortion access through the Comstock Act, a 19th century anti-obscenity law. Under the Biden Administration, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel released a letter reaffirming that the law doesn’t ban the mailing, delivery, or receipt of legal medication abortion, although anti-abortion activists expressed interest in using the law to do so. Under Bondi’s leadership, the DOJ could withdraw the Biden-era memo without issuing a new one. (Lee, 1/22)

ABC News: Multiple Health Agency Websites On HIV, Contraception Taken Down To Comply With Executive Orders Government agency webpages about HIV, LGBTQ+ people and multiple other public health topics were down as of Friday evening due to President Donald Trump's executive orders aimed at gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion. Some of the terms being flagged for removal include pregnant people, chestfeeding, diversity, DEI and references to vaccines, health and gender equity, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity. Entire databases have also been temporarily removed. (Wang, Portnoy, Haslett, Brownstein and Benadjaoud, 1/31)

The New York Times: Health Programs Shutter Around The World After Trump Pauses Foreign Aid Lifesaving health initiatives and medical research projects have shut down around the world in response to the Trump administration’s 90-day pause on foreign aid and stop-work orders. In Uganda, the National Malaria Control Program has suspended spraying insecticide into village homes and ceased shipments of bed nets for distribution to pregnant women and young children, said Dr. Jimmy Opigo, the program’s director. Medical supplies, including drugs to stop hemorrhages in pregnant women and rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea in toddlers, cannot reach villages in Zambia. (Nolen, 2/1)

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