Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Public Health Figures In Political Arena Signal A Healthy Change; Should US Births Be Free?
The public health field has spent the past several years wringing its hands about how it has been outcommunicated by its critics, fretting that it needs new strategies and trusted messengers to connect with people in our fractious information environment. 鈥淲hat went wrong鈥 has become the dominant lens through which we consider the pandemic. (Rachael Bedard, 6/23)
Second lady Usha Vance鈥檚 due date is rapidly approaching. I have no idea how healthcare expenses are treated for the vice president鈥檚 family. But JD Vance has long been an advocate for $0 out-of-pocket costs for giving birth. He is not alone. A bicameral, bipartisan group in Congress is working to make free birth a reality for all Americans. (Abby McCloskey, 6/22)
There鈥檚 a particular cruelty buried in the new Medicaid work requirement rules recently proposed by the administration, and it鈥檚 received almost no attention. It鈥檚 not just the law itself, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion last summer. The problem is the regulation implementing those cuts, which goes further than the law requires. (Maria Town and Nicole Jorwic, 6/23)
A National Institutes of Health study will evaluate whether to screen tens of thousands of healthy infants for genetic diseases. (Daniela J. Lamas, M.D., 6/22)
Sometime before the end of June, the Supreme Court is expected to deliver its opinion in Trump v. Barbara, the case challenging President Trump鈥檚 executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship in the United States. At stake is the long-standing interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which for more than a century has been understood and affirmed to mean that any child born in the United States, regardless of their parents鈥 citizenship status, is a U.S. citizen (with a remarkably narrow exception carved out for the children of diplomats). (Rachel E. Fabi, 6/23)