Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

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

The Top Three...

Fierce Healthcare: 2M Children Dropped Out Of Medicaid, CHIP Since January 2025 There are 2 million fewer children enrolled in either Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program compared to January 2025, according to a new report. The Children and Families at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy operates a state-by-state enrollment tracker that identified the declines through April, and warned that enrollment drop-offs at this scale should alarm policymakers. Federal data finds a 4% decline, equating to about 1.5 million children, per the report. (Minemyer, 6/4)

Stat: Trump’s Medicaid Work Requirements Have An Unwelcome Surprise For Some States And Patients Medicaid leaders and advocates say they’re shocked by the Trump administration’s harsh directives for implementing Medicaid work requirements, which they say mark a pivot from how federal officials had characterized their plans just weeks ago. Much of the conversation around the nearly 400-page rule that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Monday afternoon centers on one of the ways that people can be exempted from work requirements: medical frailty. Getting that exemption will be more difficult than most people had expected, meaning that more sick and disabled people are likely to lose their Medicaid coverage. (Bannow, Cirruzzo and Payne, 6/3)

KFF Health News: Amid Ebola, Hantavirus Outbreaks, Democrats Decry Trump’s Health Cuts The Trump administration’s deep cuts to federal health agencies have become a political liability after a deadly outbreak of hantavirus aboard a cruise ship and the spread of an even more fearsome disease, Ebola, in Africa. At least that’s the way many Democrats see it. They have seized on the situation to charge that the U.S. is ill prepared to respond to outbreaks — let alone a pandemic — after President Donald Trump slashed jobs and funding for public health infrastructure and pandemic preparedness. Infectious disease specialists have called on the White House to reverse cuts and rejoin the World Health Organization. (Armour, 6/1)

For a Deeper Dive...

The Hill: GOP's Bill Cassidy Faces New Decisions On Bucking Donald Trump Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) finds himself in a unique position: scorned by President Trump and out of the running for reelection, but still in charge of the highly influential Senate health committee, which can block nominees to head three health agencies currently without permanent leaders. The next few months could determine whether his legacy is restraining the Trump administration’s more extreme elements or ultimately ushering them in, as his detractors have accused him of when he voted to confirm Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. despite his public reservations. (Choi, 5/31)

Politico: States Balk At The High Price Of Medicaid Work Requirements Amid Budget Crunch The Trump administration is counting on Medicaid work requirements to save the government billions of dollars. But well before the rules formally go into effect Jan. 1, they’re costing already-strapped states millions or tens of millions to implement. State health departments are having to funnel resources into hiring more staff, paying for overtime, and upgrading their aging technology systems so they can determine which low-income residents are working, volunteering, caregiving, or studying enough hours to keep their Medicaid coverage. They are also building new systems to determine who is sick enough to qualify for an exemption. (King and Ollstein, 5/31)

The Washington Post: House Bill Rolls Back Food Aid For Pregnant Women, Children  By a vote of 213-210, the House passed an appropriations measure to fund the Agriculture Department among other agencies. The bill, which the Senate has yet to consider, aims to cut about 1.5 percent from overall federal agriculture spending in fiscal 2027, according to Republicans. ... Under the legislation, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children — more commonly known as WIC — would lose $141 million in funding for fruit and vegetable benefits for the nearly 5.4 million children and pregnant and postpartum women enrolled, according to an estimate from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (Alfaro, 6/4)

The Hill: Donald Trump Backs HHS Overhaul Of Childhood Vaccine Schedule President Trump is signing off on a decision from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this year to cut down on the number of required vaccinations for children. The president endorsed these adjusted immunization requirements in an executive order on Friday. Trump cited his administration’s commitment to “protecting religious liberty and parental authority” in the order. (Davis, 5/30)

Stat: HHS Confirms Americans With High-Risk Ebola Exposures Will Have Access To Experimental Therapy Americans who have high-risk exposures to Ebola in the current outbreak in Central Africa will have access to an antibody treatment that has shown great promise in animal testing but hasn’t yet undergone a clinical trial to show whether it is efficacious in people, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Thursday. The antibody treatment, known as MBP-134, is made by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceuticals, with funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an agency within HHS that helps develop medical countermeasures for rare and emerging diseases, and biological threats. (Branswell, 6/4)

The Hill: Conservative Think Tank Alleges Widespread ObamaCare Enrollment Fraud An influential conservative think tank contends that a quarter of all ObamaCare exchange enrollments were improper, adding more fuel to claims from the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers that the exchanges are rife with fraud. The Paragon Health Institute’s report found more than 6 million people were improperly enrolled in the health law’s exchanges in 2026. The report also argued taxpayers will improperly subsidize the Affordable Care Act program by nearly $25 billion. (Weixel, 6/3)

NPR: Trump Strips Job Protections From 8,000 Federal Workers President Trump has issued an executive order turning an estimated 8,000 federal workers into at-will employees, which means the government could fire them without providing any reason. ... Nearly all of the 8,000 people affected are at the highest level of the civil service, known as GS-15. The Trump administration characterizes the roles as senior positions with significant influence over policy. (Hsu, 6/3)

MedPage Today: New Change To PEPFAR Will Slash CDC's Presence Abroad A major change to how the popular President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program operates took effect on June 1, which experts warn will result in a massive decline in the U.S.'s public health presence abroad. Historically, the U.S. State Department brokered Congress-appropriated dollars for PEPFAR programs and CDC would receive approximately $2 billion in PEPFAR funds annually for the agency's programs around the world. (Robertson, 6/4)

CIDRAP: Three Ebola Vaccine Candidates Fast-Tracked As African Outbreak Continues The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has announced it’s helping fast-track three Ebola Bundibugyo virus vaccine candidates from the University of Oxford, Moderna, and the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), as the world races to control the growing outbreak caused by the virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda. “With Bundibugyo virus spreading rapidly and no licensed vaccines, every day counts in the race against this deadly disease,” said Richard Hatchett, MD, CEO of CEPI, in a press release. “CEPI's urgent funding and support aims to advance safe, effective vaccines to help control this epidemic.” (Soucheray, 6/1)

The New York Times: Rubio Suggests U.S. Return To Global Vaccine Program In Rebuke Of Kennedy Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated on Tuesday that the United States may resume its funding of a global vaccines alliance that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled the United States out of last year, an unusual public rebuke of Mr. Kennedy’s involvement in matters of global health. Testifying on Capitol Hill, Mr. Rubio told senators that President Trump had asked the State Department to allow Mr. Kennedy to “play a leading role” in the decision on whether to fund Gavi, an organization that provides immunizations for low-income nations and maintains the global Ebola vaccine stockpile. (Nolen and Gay Stolberg, 6/2)

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