HHS Gets Funding, But How Will Trump Spend It?
The host
The Department of Health and Human Services is funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. But lawmakers remain concerned about whether the Trump administration will spend that money as directed.
Meanwhile, negotiations over extending expanded subsidies to Affordable Care Act plans have failed in the Senate, mainly because of a recurring issue: abortion. The expiration of the subsidies at the end of 2025 has left millions of Americans unable to pay their health insurance premiums.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call.
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
- President Donald Trump signed a government spending bill that provides for HHS, as well as a separate measure that affects pharmacy benefit managers and some Medicare programs. Meanwhile, Trump has yet to release his own budget – traditionally the president’s list of priorities. On the health side, that will likely include familiar “Make America Healthy” ideas, such as funding a new agency, proposed last year, that would be known as the Healthy America Administration.
- In Congress, negotiations over renewing more generous ACA premium tax credits have failed. While lawmakers will likely continue to hear from voters about the high cost of health care, Senate negotiators are now signaling that the chances of renewing expired tax credits are low.
- A new JAMA study finds that cancer patients covered by high-deductible health plans had lower survival rates. Research suggests that high out-of-pocket costs discourage preventive and necessary care — and that’s not surprising in an environment where many Americans can’t afford surprise bills of a few hundred dollars, let alone four- or five-figure deductibles.
- And a new interview reveals a very different mandate for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory committee: examining the risks of vaccinations, rather than balancing their risks and benefits. The committee chairman’s interview, published by Politico, quotes him saying Americans should view them “more as a security committee,” adding: “Effectiveness will be secondary.” The idea that the panel will no longer weigh a vaccine’s potentially beneficial health and life effects against its possible side effects goes against decades of government best practices.
Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Renuka Rayasam about a new reporting project, “Priced Out,” which explores the increasingly unaffordable nature of insurance and health care. If you have a story you would like to share with us, you can do so here.
Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy articles they read this week that they think you should also read:
Julie Rovner: “DeSantis’ Canadian Drug Import Plan in Florida Moves From Campaign Campaign to Hard Realities,” by Arek Sarkissian.
Sandhya Raman: “Free HIV Drugs Save Lives. Why One State Is Restricting Access to Thousands,” by David Ovalle of the Washington Post.
Anna Edney: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Associated Press, “Forever Stained: Inside America’s Carpet Capital: An Empire and its Toxic Legacy,” by Dylan Jackson, Jason Dearan and Justin Price.
Joanne Kenen: Inside Climate News “‘Toxic Colonialism’ in the Bay of Bengal,” by Johnny Sturgeon.
Also mentioned in this week’s episode:
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