Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

Becker's Hospital Review: White House’s Grant Overhaul Proposal: Where Things Stand The Trump administration’s proposed overhaul of federal grantmaking has drawn nearly 99,000 public comments, with the July 13 deadline to submit comments now days away. The Office of Management and Budget’s proposal, published in the Federal Register on May 29, would update how the federal government awards and manages grants across more than 40 agencies, including HHS, the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. The proposal includes more than 320 changes to the government’s existing grant guidance, according to the Association of American Universities. (Bean, 7/9)

KFF Health News: Affordable Care Act Insurers Want More Premium Increases As Enrollment Sags For the second year in a row, many Affordable Care Act insurers are proposing double-digit premium increases, driven by rising medical costs as well as policy changes by Congress and the Trump administration. In preliminary filings with state regulators, insurers are seeking a median rate increase of 14% for 2027, according to an analysis of filings in 16 states and the District of Columbia by the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. If those rates are ultimately approved, it would be the second-highest increase since 2018. (Spears, 7/8)

The New York Times: Key Health Care Panel Is Again Blocked From Meeting Under RFK Jr.  For the fourth time, the Trump administration has prevented an important public health panel from meeting as planned. The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, has not met in person since March 2025. ... The delay of a meeting scheduled for this month was announced in an email last week to people who work with the panel. It was confirmed on Monday by Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. (Astor, 7/6)

For a Deeper Dive...

AP: New 50-State Data Shows Steep Drops In Affordable Care Act Enrollment States across the country saw steep drops in the number of people covered by the Affordable Care Act over the past year, with Ohio and Oklahoma each losing nearly one-third of enrollees, according to new federal data that provides the first complete 50-state breakdown of sharp enrollment declines following the January expiration of enhanced subsidies. The data, posted in late June by the Trump administration and first reported on by The Associated Press, reveals how changes in each state’s insured population led to around 2.6 million fewer Americans having Obamacare plans in February compared with the same time last year. (Swenson, 7/6)

The New York Times: Lawmakers Target The Power Of Health Insurance Giants After years of rampant expansion into nearly every corner of the health care system, the biggest insurance conglomerates are confronting new efforts to break up their businesses. Arguing that the companies have become too dominant, Arkansas and Tennessee passed laws that aim to prevent the companies from managing prescription benefits and running retail and mail-order pharmacies. Lawmakers in other states and in Washington have proposed similar restrictions. (Abelson and Robbins, 7/8)

MedPage Today: Republican Senator Blasts Proposed Changes To Federal Grantmaking Process A Republican senator criticized a proposed rule from the White House's budget office that would substantially change how federal grants are managed, arguing that it has the potential to harm patients and set back biomedical research. In a July 6 letter, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote that "the rule would impose new, burdensome requirements on award recipients that would harm small and rural communities, undermine scientific and biomedical research, and conflict with Congress' control over the federal funding process." (Firth, 7/8)

Stat: Trump Officials Push To Onshore Generic Drug Manufacturing  Last week, pharmaceutical leaders filed into a meeting room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, for a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and HHS Chief Counsel Chris Klomp. The administration officials had a message for the industry: It’s time to bring production of essential medications back to the U.S. — or at least closer to home. (Payne, 7/8)

Bloomberg: US Medical Glove Manufacturing Failed To Take Root After $1 Billion Investment When it comes to personal protective equipment, medical gloves are much harder to make than, say, a mask or isolation gown. While the latter use widely available fibers, the main ingredient in medical gloves — nitrile butadiene rubber — is another level of complicated. That’s one reason there isn’t an American-made medical glove, despite almost $1 billion in taxpayer funds doled out to a handful of companies since the Covid pandemic. The goal was to bolster domestic glove production and reduce reliance on imports. None of those companies are making gloves or NBR now. The US government stopped funding the effort. (Fay Cortez and Edney, 7/9)

You Might Also Enjoy...

Forbes: Why Business Should Oppose OMB’s Plan to Politicize Grantmaking. AL Kellermann

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