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House Republicans passed a budget bill Tuesday that is the first step toward extending Trump’s tax cuts and reducing spending on Medicaid. But Republicans nearly failed, and the two hours of messiness that led to its passage is an early sign of how difficult it will be to enact President Trump’s agenda. (Wilkerson, 2/25)

The House passed a budget resolution Tuesday night after the speaker, Mike Johnson, persuaded several Republican lawmakers, including those who have expressed reservations about possible Medicaid cuts, to support the bill. In theory, the budget, which kicks off the process of passing an extension of tax cuts enacted in 2017 and up to $2 trillion in spending cuts meant to partly offset them, could become law without significant cuts to Medicaid. But it won’t be easy. (Sanger-Katz and Parlapiano, 2/25)

The change could leave the 40 states that participate in the Obamacare program with a difficult set of choices. They could shoulder the extra costs to preserve Medicaid coverage for millions, make cuts to coverage or look for cuts from other large government programs to offset the reduction in federal funds. (Weiland and Kliff, 2/25)

All states rely on federal matching funds to finance their state Medicaid and CHIP programs. A new analysis from the Center for American Progress explores the potential reach of these cuts by congressional district. Table 1 shows potential federal funding losses by district if the $880 billion in cuts were to be proportional to current Medicaid and CHIP enrollment using 2023 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau. On average, each congressional district would lose $2 billion in federal funding over nine years. (Estep, Murphy, and Ducas, 2/24)

Most President Trump voters say they oppose any cuts to Medicaid as Republican lawmakers wrestle with how to reach up to $2 trillion in budget cuts through their reconciliation bill, a poll released Monday found. The poll from Hart Research conducted for the nonprofit Families Over Billionaires, which advocates in opposition to tax cuts for the wealthy, found 71 percent of voters who backed Trump said cutting Medicaid would be unacceptable. Voters overall were even more opposed to it, with 82 percent saying so. (Gans, 2/25)

A North Idaho lawmaker pushing for Medicaid expansion reform introduced a new bill meant to contain expansion’s costs — without the threat of repealing the voter-approved law. ... the new bill proposes Idaho submit to the federal government a plan for “comprehensive medicaid managed care,” which is when private companies manage Medicaid benefits, and end Idaho’s use of doctor-managed care, which is commonly called value based care. (Pfannenstiel, 2/25)

Thirty-year-old Kiana George works at a child care program in Camden, Alabama. She makes too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to qualify for federal subsidies to help buy health insurance. Without insurance, she tried to avoid going to the doctor. ... In the 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, roughly 1.4 million people like George fall in the coverage gap — earning too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to get federal subsidies to help buy insurance, according to numbers released Tuesday by KFF, a health policy research organization. (Chandler, 2/26)

Almost 1 million Texas children and teens went without health insurance at some point over the most recent year recorded. Many of them live in Houston, which has a higher rate of uninsured children than any other major metropolitan area in the nation. Overall, Texas has the worst coverage rate for kids in the country, with nearly 12% going uninsured in 2023 — up from nearly 11% in 2022. Among the issues is a backlog of thousands of families who applied for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. (Krisberg, 2/26)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen To The Latest '�������ýҕ�l Health News Minute'

Jackie Fortiér reads this week’s news: Some states are turning to laundromats to reach people who could qualify for programs including Medicaid and food assistance, and cross-border telehealth is helping Spanish-speaking farmworkers get care. (2/25)

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to reinforce rules, put into place during his first term, that push hospitals and payers to make healthcare prices more transparent for patients. The order directs the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to rapidly implement and enforce the Trump healthcare price transparency regulations, which were first issued in 2019. These rules were "slow walked" by the Biden administration, the White House said in a fact sheet explaining the executive order. (Landi, 2/25)

Hospitals and health systems spent an estimated $25.7 billion in 2023 contesting insurers’ claims denials, translating to just over $57 in additional administrative costs per claim, according to a report from provider group purchasing organization Premier. That report, which surveyed 280 of the organization’s member hospitals, suggests a 23% increase in spending over a similar analysis of 2022 data Premier had conducted a year prior. (Muoio, 2/26)

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent UnitedHealth Group Chief Executive Andrew Witty a letter demanding detailed information on the company’s Medicare billing practices Monday. The letter—which cited findings from a series of Wall Street Journal articles published over the past year—said “the apparent fraud, waste, and abuse at issue is simply unacceptable and harms not only Medicare beneficiaries, but also the American taxpayer.” (Weaver and Mathews, 2/25)

Once again, House lawmakers have introduced a bill to alter a key provision of the Inflation Reduction Act in response to arguments that the federal law is discouraging investment in developing so-called small molecule medicines. (Silverman, 2/25)

When Molly Smith went for her first mammogram in 2021, she had reason to be wary. Her grandmother, mother, sister and another family member have all been diagnosed with breast cancer. ... To her great relief, Smith received a clean report following an ultrasound, MRI and biopsy. But she incurred bills of more than $1,000 that her insurance didn’t cover. Smith is one of millions of American women who are at high risk for breast cancer but whose insurance does not cover the costs of follow-on screenings needed to detect the disease. (Morgenson, 2/25)

A federal judge on Tuesday gave the Trump administration less than two days to release billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, saying the administration had given no sign of complying with his nearly two-week-old court order to ease its funding freeze. The lawsuit was filed by nonprofit organizations over the cutoff of foreign assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development and State Department, which followed a Jan. 20 executive order by President Donald Trump targeting what he portrayed as wasteful programs that do not correspond to his foreign policy goals. (Knickmeyer and Kunzelman, 2/26)

Last month, researchers in South Africa were preparing to administer two experimental HIV vaccines in a Phase 1 clinical trial. The staff was trained, immunizations were ready, and participant screening had begun. Then, they received a stop-work order: The $45 million in funding from USAID to support the project was frozen under a 90-day review — and could be withdrawn completely. (MacPhail, 2/26)

A former Goldman Sachs analyst and son of a private equity billionaire has ambitions to control some of U.S.A.I.D.’s roughly $40 billion budget and apply more of a “pro-market” approach to supporting development in other countries. Benjamin Black, 40, has been nominated by President Trump to run the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a little-known agency that invests and lends billions each year to companies and projects overseas. (Goldstein and Farrell, 2/26)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer process transgender identity data in order to comply with President Trump’s executive order, agency representative Melissa Dibble told STAT on Tuesday. Sexual orientation data is unaffected and “will be processed per usual protocols,” Dibble added. (Gaffney, 2/25)

The latest battle erupted on Monday, inside the domain of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., when employees of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received an email instructing them to avoid using more than a dozen “key words" when writing annual goals for performance evaluations. The disfavored terms, according to copies of the email reviewed by The New York Times, included “health equity,” “race,” “bias,” “disparity,” “culturally appropriate” and “stereotype.” (2/26)

More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.” “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.” (Slodysko and Tau, 2/25)

Lynn Dekleva, who recently took a senior role at the agency, once led an aggressive effort by industry to block regulations on formaldehyde. (Tabuchi, 2/26)

The Trump administration will require all unauthorized immigrants in the United States who are 14 and older to register with the federal government or face civil and criminal penalties, including up to $1,000 in fines and up to six months in prison. (Sacchetti, 2/25)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Health Clinic Workers Brush Up On Constitutional Protections As Immigration Raids Loom

The lobby at this St. John’s Community Health clinic in South Los Angeles bustles with patients. But community health worker Ana Ruth Varela is worried that it’s about to get a lot quieter. Many patients, she said, are afraid to leave their homes. “The other day I spoke with one of the patients. She said: ‘I don’t know. Should I go to my appointment? Should I cancel? I don’t know what to do.’ And I said, ‘Just come.’ ”Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, fear of mass deportations carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gripped immigrant communities. (Fortiér, 2/26)

Sensitive financial and health data belonging to millions of veterans and stored on a benefits website is at risk of being stolen or otherwise compromised, according to a federal employee tasked with cybersecurity who was recently fired as part of massive government-wide cuts. The warning comes from Jonathan Kamens, who led cybersecurity efforts for VA.gov — an online portal for Department of Veterans Affairs benefits and services used by veterans, their caregivers and families. (Witte and Ngowi, 2/25)

Despite facing many of the same risks service members do, military contractors have little in the way of support or resources when they return home. A new organization launching this month aims to change that. The Association of War Zone Contractors is the first nonprofit dedicated to organizing and advocating for the hundreds thousands of contractors the U.S. relies on in its overseas operations. Like generations of veterans before who have come home from battle, scarred physically and psychologically, and pushed for better care, the group hopes to draw attention — and eventually resources — to support contractors as they increasingly bear the costs of war. (Kehrt, 2/25)

Health systems are treating sicker patients, straining already full emergency departments and inpatient units. Many health systems are struggling to keep up with the increasingly complex healthcare needs of an aging population, leading to overcrowded emergency rooms and delays in care. Providers are ramping up strategies to treat patients more efficiently and keep those who aren't as sick out of emergency departments. These strategies are critical as capacity wanes and providers face a potential decline in federal healthcare funding, executives said. (Kacik, 2/25)

A while back, Robert Diegelmann completed a 10-day hospital visit — in the comfort of his home. The 81-year-old was being treated for a recurring infection at VCU Medical Center’s hospital in Richmond when his doctor suggested he finish his hospital stay at his home in Midlothian, 15 miles away. The medical center arranged his transportation home and supplied meals. Nurses visited twice daily in person and twice daily by video, too. A courier delivered medications to his house. His vital signs were monitored remotely, and he had round-the-clock access to a clinician via phone or text. (Butcher, 2/25)

A strike involving nearly 5,000 healthcare workers at Providence Health in Oregon, which began Jan. 10, has come to an end. Late Monday, eight RN bargaining units voted overwhelmingly to ratify their contracts and end the strike, which was believed to be the largest involving healthcare workers, and the first involving physicians, in the state's history, according to the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA), which represented the workers. (Henderson, 2/25)

Deerfield-based Walgreens Boots Alliance has agreed to pay a $595 million settlement to a virtual care company over a dispute involving COVID-19 testing — dodging a $987 million arbitration award that a federal judge recently said Walgreens had to pay. (Schencker, 2/25)

After years of negotiations over the proposed sale of three Connecticut hospitals owned by Prospect Medical Holdings to Yale New Haven Health, officials with Yale said Tuesday the deal appears “impossible.” (Golvala, 2/25)

Three people were taken to a hospital after a medical helicopter crashed in a wooded area near a North Carolina airport, officials said. The three team members who were on the AirLink helicopter on Monday night were taken for evaluation. No patients were on board, Novant Health said in a statement. The team consisted of a pilot, a critical care registered nurse and a critical care paramedic, Novant Health said in another statement released later Tuesday. They were in fair condition Tuesday evening, Novant Health said. (2/25)

The country’s largest manufacturer of abortion pills is wading into the first major legal battle over abortion of President Trump’s second term. The company, GenBioPro, on Tuesday asked a Texas court to add it to the list of defendants in a lawsuit filed in October by three Republican state attorneys general. The move was a significant offensive action on an issue seen as a vanguard in the fight over access to abortion. (Lerer, 2/25)

Health care providers in Iowa would be required to tell patients that it may be possible to reverse the effects of a medication abortion, something reproductive rights advocates and medical groups say is not supported by science. Republican members of a three-member House subcommittee on Tuesday advanced House Study Bill 186 for consideration by the full House Health and Human Services Committee. (Barton, 2/25)

Cancer mortality rates are declining among African Americans, but death rates are still the highest of any racial group, according to the latest study from the American Cancer Society. The organization’s latest report, Cancer Statistics for African American and Black People, 2025, which was published this month in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, shows that from 1991 to 2022, death rates among Black men decreased by 49%, while death rates for Black women fell 33%. (Henderson, 2/25)

Between the ongoing controversy around fluoridated water and the recent discovery of a chemical in our water systems that may or may not be toxic, the safety of American drinking water is murky, to say the least. And today, with a new report revealing that tap water is delivering harmful chemicals like PFAS (“forever chemicals”), heavy metals, and radioactive substances to millions of Americans—often at levels far beyond what scientists consider safe—it got even murkier. (Greenfield, 2/26)

The foods we eat as young children help set the course for the rest of our lives. Regular doses of peanut butter and eggs before age 1 can help prevent food allergies. A baby who gnaws on spinach and soft bouquets of broccoli, with their slightly bitter flavors, is more likely to enjoy vegetables as an adult. As for what happens when babies and toddlers grow up on ultra-processed foods — well, that’s what health experts are increasingly worried about. (Todd, 2/26)

An unknown illness has killed 53 people in a northwestern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a significant portion of deaths taking place within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms, according to the World Health Organization, which describes the outbreak as posing “a significant public health threat.” At least 431 cases have been reported since January of individuals suffering from fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle aches, headaches and fatigue, according to the WHO’s Africa office. (Ho, 2/25)

Colorado regulators have issued the first licenses to individuals seeking to open psilocybin-related businesses. As of Thursday afternoon, the Department of Revenue’s Natural Medicine Division had approved seven license applications for prospective business owners, including one who wants to open a psilocybin mushroom cultivation and another who hopes to operate a healing center. Additionally, the division issued one license to a local who hopes to work in the nascent industry. (Ricciardi, 2/25)

As the measles outbreak in Texas keeps spreading, parents who previously chose not to vaccinate their children are now lining up to get their kids the shots needed to protect them from the serious illness. “We’ve vaccinated multiple kids that have never been vaccinated before, some from families that didn’t believe in vaccines,” said Katherine Wells, director of public health for Lubbock's health department. On Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported that 124 cases of measles have been confirmed since late January, mostly in counties in West Texas, near the New Mexico border. (Edwards, 2/25)

Utah is gearing up to make history as the first state to ban fluoride in public water systems if Gov. Spencer Cox signs a bill to prohibit the addition of the tooth decay-fighting mineral. If signed into law, HB0081 would prevent any individual or political subdivision from adding fluoride "to water in or intended for public water systems." ... "The bill also repeals previous laws related to fluoridated water provisions, including sections about providing fluoridated water upon resident request and under emergency circumstances," the bill summary reads. (Alsharif, 2/25)

Republicans on the Iowa House Judiciary Committee advanced a bill Monday that would remove civil rights protections for transgender Iowans from state law, as a few hundred people protested the bill at the Statehouse. (Sostaric, 2/25)

Iowa continues to have one of the highest rates of new cancer diagnoses in the country, according to the annual Cancer in Iowa report by the Iowa Cancer Registry. Iowa remains second in the nation, behind Kentucky, for the rate of new cancers, according the the report's age-adjusted data. (Krebs, 2/25)

A quarter of New York City residents don’t have enough money for staples like housing and food, and many say they cannot afford to go to the doctor, according to a report that underscores the urgency of an affordability crisis elected officials are struggling to confront. The report, by a research group at Columbia University and Robin Hood, an anti-poverty group, found that the share of New Yorkers in poverty was nearly double the national average in 2023 and had increased by seven percentage points in just two years. The spike is in part due to the expiration of government aid that was expanded during the pandemic. (Oreskes, 2/26)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Los Angeles County Has Cut Homelessness, But Wildfires Threaten To Erase That Gain

As flames engulfed a nearby canyon, dozens of residents in a sober-living home fled to an unoccupied building about 30 miles south. The evacuees, many of whom were previously homeless, watched helplessly as their home burned on live TV. When they awoke on air mattresses the next morning, loss set in. Some feared uncertainty. Others were jolted back to lives they thought they’d left behind. (Hart, 2/26)

New records show that the F.B.I. identified Bryan Kohberger as a potential murder suspect after tapping consumer databases GEDmatch and MyHeritage, which were supposed to be off limits. (Baker, 2/25)

The Food and Drug Administration has taken a crucial step toward expanding access to the antipsychotic medication clozapine, the only drug approved for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, among the most devastating of mental illnesses. The agency announced on Monday that it was eliminating a requirement that patients submit blood tests before their prescriptions can be filled. (Barry, 2/25)

A new type of bone marrow transplant can cure sickle cell disease with only half of the donor's cell proteins matching, according to new clinical trial results published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The procedure would greatly expand the pool of potential donors, in addition to costing less than one-quarter of the price of innovative gene therapies for the condition that have earned Food and Drug Administration approval in recent years. (Goldman, 2/26)

AstraZeneca said its breast cancer drug candidate showed positive results in a late stage trial, with improved progression-free survival in patients. The British pharma giant said Wednesday that the trial for Camizestrant showed statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival compared with the standard-of-care treatment. For the trial the drug was combined with a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, which slows cell proliferation. The experimental pill also showed improved trends of delayed progression to secondary disease. (Smolak, 2/26)

One in six patients in phase II oncology clinical trials received a treatment that was eventually approved by the FDA, according to a longitudinal study. In a sample of 400 phase II trials that included 25,000 participants, a total of 4,045 patients (16.2%) received a treatment that advanced to FDA approval, reported Jonathan Kimmelman, PhD, of the McGill University School of Population and Global Health in Montreal, and colleagues in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. (Bassett, 2/25)

A trade group representing compounding pharmacies has filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for removing semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, from its drug shortage list. (Choi, 2/25)

Aspirin failed to cut the intensity of organ dysfunction in patients with sepsis, a placebo-controlled phase II trial from Brazil showed. For the primary endpoint ... there was no significant difference between groups. ... Yet aspirin "increased the risk of severe bleeding compared to placebo," said Thiago Miranda Lopes de Almeida, PhD, of Hospital São Paulo in Brazil, in a presentation here at the Society of Critical Care Medicine annual meeting. (Susman, 2/25)

In 2020, Sue Bell became one of the first Alzheimer's patients in the U.S. to receive the drug now marketed as Leqembi. Four years later, she and her husband, Ken, halted the treatment. Sue's Alzheimer's had reached the point where her taking the drug no longer made sense. "I think it helped," says her husband, Ken Bell. "But I'm not sure." (Hamilton, 2/26)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt its “Wild to Mild” campaign promoting the flu vaccine. Kennedy wants future vaccine communications to focus on “informed consent,” by which he means giving people information about the adverse events associated with vaccines. That’s a distorted view, one that demonstrates broader confusion about informed consent and the goals of public health. (Mark C. Navin, Lainie Friedman Ross and Jason A. Wasserman, 2/26)

A measles outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico has sickened more than 130 people and public health experts fear it’s only the beginning. It’s an entirely avoidable health emergency fueled by weaknesses in our vaccine forcefield. (Lisa Jarvis, 2/26)

Thanks to successful vaccination campaigns, most Americans today have never experienced a measles outbreak. So when they see news that rural West Texas has recorded 90 cases within the past month, the largest spike in the state in nearly 30 years, they might not understand why it’s so alarming. (Leana S. Wen, 2/25)

We can’t blame the bird flu entirely on Trump — it’s been around for a while, and he’s only been in office for six weeks — but it is his problem. “So far, he has only made matters worse,” Patricia writes. “The mass firings included an unconfirmed number of people working on the bird flu response — a stunning display of bureaucratic incompetence. Officials now are scrambling to find and rehire them.” (Jessica Karl, 2/25)

Private equity’s aim is clear — to pursue short-term profits at the expense of their target, whether that’s children’s interests, or in the case of hospitals, patient’s lives. In 2023, nearly one in five hospital bankruptcies in the U.S. were private equity owned hospitals. None involved Connecticut –until now. (Aashka Shah MD, 2/26)

13,064. That’s the number of times children covered by HUSKY visited Connecticut emergency departments for behavioral health crises in 2023. Suicidality, severe anxiety, major depression, self-harm. For anyone counting, that is a massive increase in ED encounters since the Hartford Courant ran a front page story on emergency room over-crowding in 2007. (Sarah Eagan, 2/26)