Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

The Hill: Acting CDC Director Bhattacharya Urges Measles Vaccines Jay Bhattacharya, the recently appointed acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on Monday urged families to consider vaccinating against measles as outbreaks across the country continue. In a video statement posted on the social media platform X, Bhattacharya discussed the steps that the CDC is taking the address the measles situation in the U.S., including “surging” resources and coordinating with states to spread education and outreach. (Choi, 3/2)

MedPage Today: USPSTF Meeting Pushed Back For Third Time In A Row Yet another scheduled meeting of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has been postponed, HHS confirmed Tuesday. The task force, which typically meets three times a year, hasn't convened since March of last year, with meetings in July and November abruptly canceled. (Henderson, 3/3)

AP: Trump Administration Launches Medicaid Fraud Probe In New York President Donald Trump’s administration is expanding its crackdown on state Medicaid programs to New York, launching a fraud probe in the state a week after it said it was freezing nearly $260 million in Medicaid funding in Minnesota over similar accusations. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced Tuesday that the Trump administration identified concerning trends in New York’s Medicaid program and demanded that state officials provide details about their handling of fraud, waste and abuse within 30 days or risk deferred payments. (Swenson and Izaguirre, 3/5)

For a Deeper Dive...

The Wall Street Journal: Turmoil Takes Hold At CDC As Top Officials Keep Leaving Facing continued upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jay Bhattacharya, the new acting director, arrived at its Atlanta headquarters last week to steady the ship. Bhattacharya, who is also the head of the National Institutes of Health, might not be there long: The administration intends to nominate a new CDC director in the coming weeks, people familiar with the matter said, marking its first effort to permanently fill the role since last summer and a string of leadership changes at the nation’s top health agency. (Siddiqui, Calfas and Essley Whyte, 3/1)

Washington State Standard: WA Moves To Issue Its Own Guidance For Vaccines Insurers Must Cover Last fall, Washington and other Western states issued their own vaccine recommendations in a sharp rejection of federal policy that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended. And on Thursday, the Washington Legislature passed legislation to change state law so that vaccine coverage is tied to recommendations from the state, not a federal panel filled with Kennedy appointees. It requires insurers to follow the state’s guidelines instead of the ones from the feds that Democrats say can no longer be trusted. (Goldstein-Street, 2/26)

NBC News: After CDC Vaccine Changes, States Push To Keep Childhood Shots Free, Accessible As the Trump administration shakes up recommendations for childhood vaccines, a growing number of states are moving quickly to ensure vaccines remain free and health care workers are protected from lawsuits. “States are stepping in to protect their communities proactively,” said Dr. David Higgins, a practicing pediatrician in Aurora, Colorado, and vice president of the Colorado chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. (Sullivan, 2/28)

The Hill: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski Undecided On Trump Surgeon General Pick Casey Means President Trump’s choice to serve as surgeon general has not cobbled together enough votes to win confirmation as a pair of centrist Senate Republicans have yet to give her their support. Casey Means, the nominee for the position, is facing an uphill climb to make it through the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee after an at-times contentious confirmation hearing Wednesday. (Weaver, 2/27)

Bloomberg Law: Trump Administration Funding Delays Worry NIH Grant Recipients The National Institutes of Health is months behind on dispersing the bulk of its fiscal 2026 money to grantees, and research advocates worry that without an update on the delay the Trump administration will claw back the funds or create multiyear grants that hamstring the recipients. Limited money from last month’s government funding law is being dispersed through the NIH and is largely limited to government salaries and continuing emergency activities, according to three people familiar with NIH grantmaking procedures. The grant money that is flowing out has come from carryover funds from a November stopgap funding measure. (Raman, 3/3)

Stat: TrumpRx: High Expectations, But Limited Impact A Month After Launch President Trump heralded his signature drug discount platform, TrumpRx, as “one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time.” But a month after its launch, few drugs are available, data about how much the site is being used remains unknown, and the private deals underlying TrumpRx are still being worked out. The reality of the early days of the platform comes in sharp contrast to the soaring expectations set by the president, who cast a vision for unprecedented cuts to how much people pay for medications, pharmaceutical market experts and patient advocates said. (Payne, 3/5)

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