Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

Managed Healthcare Executive: In Record-Long State Of The Union, Trump Devotes Less Than Five Minutes To Healthcare In an hour and 48-minute speech that set the record for length for the State of the Union address, President Donald Trump spent less than five minutes on healthcare issues. At approximately 35 minutes into the speech, Trump launched into attack of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), saying that it had made insurance companies rich and had benefited the companies, not people. The government, said Trump, had given insurers “hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year as their stock prices soared 1,000, 1,200; 1,400 and even 1,700%, like nothing else.” Trump said that is why he proposed his Great Healthcare Plan, which was unveiled in January 2026. “I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost.” (2/25)

Politico: Trump’s Surgeon General Pick, Casey Means, Still Lacks Votes For Confirmation Casey Means, President Donald Trump’s pick for surgeon general, does not yet have the votes for confirmation following a testy Senate health committee hearing on her nomination Wednesday. Senators of both parties pressed Means on her views about vaccines at the hearing. Means did not commit to promoting them and now has to convince at least two skeptical Republicans to back her nomination: Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who told POLITICO they haven’t decided how they’ll vote. (Levien, Friedman and Paun, 2/26)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration To Withhold $259M In Minnesota Medicaid Funds, Citing Fraud Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration would withhold $259 million in Medicaid payments for Minnesota, escalating its fight with the state as the White House seeks to elevate health care fraud as an election-year issue. “We have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligation seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money,” Vance said at a news conference, standing alongside Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Viser and Diamond, 2/25)

For a Deeper Dive...

MedPage Today: RFK Jr. May Eliminate The USPSTF, Original Task Force Members Warn HHS could completely eliminate the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) or delegitimize the independent body like it did with CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two original USPSTF members warned. "The USPSTF, the entity established by the Reagan administration to bring scientific rigor to prevention policy, is now under threat by the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," argued Robert Lawrence, MD, the first chair of the task force when it started over four decades ago, and Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, its first scientific advisor, in an Annals of Internal Medicine commentary. (Frieden, 2/23)

ABC News: Surgeon General Nominee Casey Means Stops Short Of Recommending Certain Vaccines During Senate Hearing President Donald Trump's surgeon general nominee, Dr. Casey Means, indicated she supports vaccines but stopped short of recommending certain shots during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee on Wednesday. Means, who has a medical degree but does not hold an active medical license, appeared hesitant to say that some vaccines, such as the flu vaccine, prevent serious disease. (Kekatos, 2/25)

The New York Times: 15 States Sue The Trump Administration Over Vaccine Schedule Revisions Aiming to reverse recent changes to federal vaccine recommendations, 15 states led by Democrats announced on Tuesday that they were suing the Trump administration. The lawsuit, filed by a coalition of 14 attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania, asks the courts to nullify the administration’s decision in January to reduce the number of diseases children are routinely immunized against to 11 from 17. (Mandavilli, 2/24)

The New York Times: New A.C.A. Plans Could Increase Family Deductibles To $31,000 The Trump administration’s proposed new rules for Obamacare plans next year would shift more health care costs to Americans, with much higher deductibles that could lead to larger medical bills. Under the proposal, people who rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health insurance coverage could choose plans with much lower monthly premiums. But that could leave them exposed to medical expenses totaling thousands of dollars more than A.C.A. plans do now before their insurance would kick in. (Abelson, 2/26)

Managed Healthcare Executive: What Does The Supreme Court Decision Striking Down Tariffs Mean For The Pharmaceutical Industry? The Trump administration has other legal avenues to impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals despite the Supreme Court decision striking down many of the administration’s current tariffs. In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that President Donald Trump did not have the authority to impose tariffs under a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. But at a White House press conference, Trump said there were numerous other statutes and authorities that give the president the power to impose tariffs. He cited Sections 122 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974; Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962; and Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, commonly referred to as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. He also announced that he would impose a broad tariff of 10% under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, effectively replacing tariffs he imposed under the international emergency law that the court struck down. (Wehrwein, 2/21)

The Hill: Bhattacharya's Dual Role As NIH And CDC Head Sparks Worry Public health experts and former federal staffers are uneasy over National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya’s rising influence over U.S. health policy as he temporarily takes on the added role of leading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Trump administration announced the leadership shake-up this week, with former interim CDC Director Jim O’Neill being moved out of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “Candidly, this is someone who very clearly has an ax to grind with science and the scientific community in general,” Kayla Hancock, director of Protect our Care’s Public Health Watch project, said of Bhattacharya. (Choi, 2/22)

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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