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  • Trump Administration Pressures Insurers to Streamline Prior Authorization

    Published July 11, 2025
    By Kevin Stone
    Publication -
    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has secured a pledge from insurers to streamline the companies’ practice of requiring prior authorizations before covering a claim. “Americans shouldn’t have to negotiate with their insurer to get the care they need,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a June 23, 2025, news release. “Pitting patients […]

  • Supreme Court Decision Allows Task Force to Mandate HIV Prevention Drugs

    Published July 10, 2025
    By AnneMarie Schieber
    Publication -
    The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the legality of a provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requiring insurers to cover preventative care services without cost sharing, including services that employers may find objectionable. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force determines what services should be covered. The plaintiffs in Kennedy, Sec. of H&HS v. Braidwood Management […]

  • ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Will Test Value of Medicaid, ACA

    Published July 10, 2025
    By Bonner R. Cohen
    Publication -
    Congress and President Donald Trump moved to cut the exploding costs of government-sponsored health-care programs, as part of the $3.4 trillion One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) budget package Trump signed into law on Independence Day. Ballooning enrollment in Medicaid and subsidized Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans has put increasing pressure on the federal budget. […]

  • Health Savings Account Expansion Survives in ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’

    Published July 7, 2025
    By AnneMarie Schieber
    Publication -
    After nearly a month of debate, the U.S. Senate sent its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) to the U.S. House for final passage, in time to land on President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4. The House version of the budget reconciliation bill passed on May 22 included provisions to expand […]

  • Health Coverage Is Not the Only Measure of Success – Commentary

    Published July 7, 2025
    By John C. Goodman
    Publication -
    In evaluating the success of Obamacare in general and Medicaid expansion in particular, reporters and commentators have tended to focus on a single measure: health coverage, the increase in the number of people with health insurance. At the same time, in evaluating the health consequences of the House Republican reconciliation measure, almost all the focus […]

  • Kennedy’s CDC Vaccine Committee Meets for First Time

    Published July 3, 2025
    By Ashley Bateman
    Publication -
    The new vaccine committee appointed by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took minimal action in its first meeting. The seven members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met on June 25 and 26 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The committee […]

  • FDA to Ban Sales of Prescription Fluoride

    Published July 2, 2025
    By Joe Barnett
    Publication -
    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will remove “ingestible fluoride prescription drug products” or supplements for children from the market effective October 2025 after completing a safety review, the agency announced in a press release on May 13. The FDA says these products were never approved by the agency. “Ingested fluoride has been shown […]

  • MAHA Commission Report: Sickest Generation in History

    Published July 1, 2025
    By Ashley Bateman
    Publication -
    The first report by a presidential panel commissioned to “Make America Healthy Again (MAHA)” raises concerns about the rising rate of childhood disease, suggests possible causes, and recommends a 10-step strategy “to close critical research gaps” to guide efforts to solve the problem. The 71-page “Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment,” released on May 22, […]

  • Supreme Court Affirms State Authority on Medicaid Providers

    Published June 27, 2025
    By AnneMarie Schieber
    Publication -
    South Carolina has the constitutional authority to block a provider from its Medicaid program without being vulnerable to lawsuits from recipients, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June. Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic weighed in on whether Medicaid enrollees have a right to sue the state government if they believe their right to […]

  • Grace-Marie Turner, Leading Force for Free Market Health Care, R.I.P.

    Published June 25, 2025
    By AnneMarie Schieber
    Publication -
    A nationally respected voice for “individuals, not bureaucracies” in health care, Grace-Marie Turner never lost her belief that health reform was within the nation’s grasp as long as advocates stayed unified and persistent. Turner, aged 77, died on May 29, 2025, from brain cancer, according to the organization,  CURE Policy. Turner was the founder and […]

  • How Operation Warp Speed Helped Create RFK, Jr. – Commentary

    Published June 20, 2025
    By Raymond J. March
    Publication -
    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) since mid-February. Despite being new to the job, Kennedy has made more statements to provoke public outrage than any HHS secretary in history. One example is when Kennedy once stated the measles vaccine (usually part of the combination measles-mumps-rubella […]

  • Medicaid Is Not a Test Lab for Foreign Price Controls – Commentary

    Published June 17, 2025
    By Sally C. Pipes
    Publication -
    In a desperate bid to claim fiscal discipline without touching entitlements, President Donald Trump is pushing congressional Republicans to adopt a “most favored nation” (MFN) drug pricing model for Medicaid. This policy would tie Medicaid reimbursements to the lowest prices paid in other developed countries—countries where government officials dictate drug prices under threat of coercion, […]

  • Fauci’s Fortune Doubled While He Led COVID-19 Policy

    Published June 16, 2025
    By Kevin Stone
    Publication -
    Anthony Fauci, the retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), doubled his fortune from $7.6 million to more than $15 million from January 2019 and the end of 2023, the watchdog group Open the Books reports. Fauci earned $3.5 million in his first year of retirement in 2023 alone. In […]

  • Why Are Lower-Cost Biosimilars So Hard for Patients to Get?

    Published June 11, 2025
    By Kevin Stone
    Publication -
    The House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony on hindrances to the expansion of use of biosimilars, medications close in structure and function to a patented biologic medicine. Witnesses at the April 8 hearing told legislators biosimilars save patients and taxpayers money, that pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) middlemen often raise prices or limit availability for […]

  • Pfizer’s COVID-19 Shot Linked to More Deaths Than Moderna’s, Study Finds

    Published June 9, 2025
    By Kenneth Artz
    Publication -
    Recipients of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine experienced more all-cause deaths within the first 100 days post-vaccination than those who received the Moderna shot, a new study of 1.47 million people found. Although all-cause mortality for either shot should have been the same, 230 more people per 100,000 who got the Pfizer jab died within the […]

  • Best Way to End Medicaid Waste: Give Enrollees Cash – Commentary

    Published June 5, 2025
    By Robert Koshnick, M.D.,
    Publication -
    In their paper titled “Leveraging the Medicaid Expansion,” David Hyman and Charles Silver write, “We propose that rather than adhering to Medicaid’s traditional structure, where states pay providers at unreasonably low rates for treating beneficiaries, expansion projects should be modeled on Social Security and the Earned Income Tax Credit, both of which distribute money that […]

  • ‘Designer Babies’ through IVF Raise Critics’ Ethical Concerns

    Published June 4, 2025
    By Harry Painter
    Publication -
    Genetic screening technology now allows parents employing in vitro fertilization (IVF) to select for certain traits, allowing them to avoid passing on diseases or undesirable traits to their children. Orchid, a genetic screening company that bills itself as “the world’s most advanced whole genome screening for embryos during IVF,” allows parents essentially to customize children, […]

  • Research and Commentary: Texas Bill Would Unleash Faster, Better Health Care Treatments

    Published June 3, 2025
    Publication -
    Research and Commentaries -
    Texas lawmakers are considering a bill that would speed and improve health care treatments by easing preauthorization requirements for physicians and providers delivering certain health care services. Senate Bill 1380 would establish “that certain health care services, including emergency care, intervention-necessary care, outpatient mental health treatment, and preventive services, cannot require preauthorization from health maintenance […]

  • HHS to Require Placebo-Controlled Trials for New Vaccines

    Published June 3, 2025
    By Kevin Stone
    Publication -
    The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it will enact a new policy requiring placebo-controlled trials for all new vaccines. The Washington Post reported on May 1 that HHS sent the outlet a statement that said, in part, “All new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure—a radical departure […]

  • DOJ Pressures Medical Journals for Lack of Neutrality

    Published June 2, 2025
    By Bonner R. Cohen
    Publication -
    The Justice Department has sent letters to leading medical journals, requesting information on how the publications chose and present their content. Although the letters do not constitute a formal DOJ investigation into the journals’ practices, their wording leaves little doubt the publications are under scrutiny in the latest escalation of the conflict between the Trump […]

  • FDA to Phase Out Synthetic Food Dyes

    Published May 27, 2025
    By Ashley Bateman
    Publication -
    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plan to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from food and drugs in the United States by the end of 2026. The agencies plan to create a national standard and timeline to transition from synthetic to natural alternatives. That […]

  • Hospitals Say No to Medicare Advantage

    Published May 27, 2025
    By Bonner R. Cohen
    Publication -
    Hospitals and medical centers across the United States are increasingly opting out of Medicare Advantage (MA), a popular program that provides coverage to millions of older Americans. Providers are exiting MA so fast that Becker’s Hospital Review now continuously updates its growing list of cancellations. In 2025, Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White severed ties with […]

  • Medically Assisted Suicide Bills Are Sweeping the Nation

    Published May 23, 2025
    By AnneMarie Schieber
    Publication -
    Forgoing the long, expensive, and unpredictable ballot proposal process, an increasing number of states are pushing legalized assisted suicide through their legislatures. The bills are having mixed success. Maryland defeated an eighth attempt to pass assisted suicide legislation when a bill failed to gain traction before the Maryland General Assembly ended its session for the […]

  • Innovators Call for More Access to Cutting-Edge Treatments

    Published May 22, 2025
    By Bonner R. Cohen
    Publication -
    The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should not overlook new applications of existing therapies and treatments to improve patients’ lives in pursuing the goal of making Americans healthier, a panel discussion hosted by The Heritage Foundation concluded. The panel focused on photobiomodulation (PBM) and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) as two proven treatments that […]

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