April 8, 2026 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | April 8, 2026
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
[Over] 150 Ohio doctors, organized by a national group called the Committee to Protect Health Care, have signed a letter strongly opposing a flurry of what they call “extremist” abortion bills moving through the Statehouse.
Of particular concern to those doctors is House Bill 754, proposed just last month by Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland) that would require every pregnancy and fetal death in Ohio to be registered with the state. Columbus medical student [Committee Advocate] Ellena Privitera said she worries that, if passed, the bill would cause fear among her patients. [...]
[Committee Advocate] Dr. Maria Phillis, a Cleveland OB-GYN, criticized House Bill 347, also called the “SHE WINS” Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week. That bill would require a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion procedure… “I’ve seen patients previously when we had this 24-hour waiting period in effect that were affected by this requirement and were either unable to access care or had their care significantly delayed,” Phillis said.
On March 25, Committee Advocates Dr. Rachel Crebessa, Dr. Sarah Swiezy, and Dr. Brittani Steinberg testified at a Missouri legislative committee hearing, speaking out against two anti-abortion bills, HB 1667 & HB 2294. These bills could, among other things, criminalize routine care, enable lawsuits against individuals providing support, and introduce personhood language.
On March 31, the Committee co-hosted a press call with Americans for Contraception, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, and A Better Wisconsin Together. The call, held just seven days before the 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, focused on the 177th anniversary of the 1800s law that Wisconsin Republicans have tried to enforce as an abortion ban. Committee Board Chair Dr. Kristen Lyerly and Committee Member Dr. Abigail La Nou spoke alongside state Rep. Lisa Subeck, state Sen. Dora Drake, and patients. The event was covered by WEAU.
Judge Chris Taylor won her election Tuesday, securing a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for years to come. This was a decisive victory for reproductive rights in the state.
Mississippi legislators have passed legislation to criminalize abortion pills and those who provide them and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is expected to sign it into law.
As the final (and legally-mandated) Title X funding for Planned Parenthood winds down, HHS says it will redirect its funding dollars to organizations that “prioritize life and promote the pro-family agenda”, reports Kylie Cheung and Jessica Valenti at ABORTION, EVERY DAY.
Trump Administration News
NBC News reports that more than 400 hospitals across the United States are at high risk of closing or cutting services because of the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
With the critical midterm elections looming, the Trump administration is sending RFK Jr. out on a “win back the MAHA vote” tour. He is expected to visit Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Virginia, Ohio, Montana and Texas.
New polling suggests it might be a good move with MAHA adherents putting vaccines far down the list of their “core principles” relative to food safety, food quality, pesticides, and other items. The polling also shows that the top concerns of MAHA voters are aligned with all voters, suggesting that Kennedy’s message may be well-received by non-MAHA voters who don’t know of his more dangerous beliefs.
Meanwhile, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is quietly being reformed and RFK Jr. will get to call the shots going forward.
Healthcare Dive: One year after HHS layoffs, a department in disarray:
All told, the HHS’ workforce has fallen from 92,000 people to just shy of 75,000 over President Donald Trump’s second term, the data shows.
The layoffs and subsequent attrition have winnowed staffing levels to such an extent that sources in divisions particularly affected described feeling like they were working on a skeleton crew. And the work of the HHS is suffering as a result, they said.
“It took them just a few weeks to break things that are going to take decades to fix,” a former worker in the HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary who was affected by the layoffs predicted. “I don’t think people realize how detrimental this will end up being.”
Despite this, the Trump administration is seeking a 12.5% funding cut to HHS in its 2027 budget proposal. That’s $15.8 billion annually. Meanwhile, they’re asking for $1.5 trillion for defense, a 44% increase.
The New York Times: Heeding Kennedy’s Wishes, F.D.A. Is Expected to Lift Restriction on Peptides:
The Food and Drug Administration is moving toward allowing compounding pharmacies to produce more than a dozen injectable peptides that were banned because of potentially significant safety risks, according to a senior administration official.
In 2023, 14 peptides were removed from a list of products that the F.D.A. allows compounding pharmacies to produce. The pharmacies tailor products for individual patients’ needs. The peptides had not been approved by the F.D.A. as safe or effective and, in recent years, the agency had noted that they were increasingly being marketed with unproved claims that they had cosmetic, anti-aging and disease-fighting benefits.
“It’s 100 percent ‘bro’ science,” said Dr. Noah Raizman, an orthopedic surgeon in the Washington area who said he had also observed a rise in peptide use for a variety of health-related purposes. He added: “Are these specific drugs likely to be dangerous? We don’t know.”
Other Health Care News
The Hill: Health care polling as top issue for first time since 2020: Gallup
AP: Diabetes advocates cross their fingers as a bipartisan bill revives efforts to lower insulin costs:
A bipartisan group of senators is aiming to relieve that cost burden with the INSULIN Act, a bill to cap the cost of the lifesaving drug at $35 per month for Americans with private insurance plans. The bill, introduced last week by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and John Kennedy, R-La., would also start a pilot program to provide more affordable insulin to uninsured Americans in 10 states.
Florida wants to be the first state in the country to ban vaccine mandates but its lawmakers can’t seem to figure out how to do it:
[A]n effort to change rules by the [Department of Health] appears to have stalled. And a watered-down version of an anti-mandate bill appeared in this year’s legislative session but failed to advance in both chambers.
“Maybe they saw this wasn’t going to be as politically popular for them to do,” said Simone Chriss, a civil rights attorney with Southern Legal Counsel.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland and New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez are pushing a state-level public option for health insurance with Haaland saying, “I just think that if we move to single payer health care, costs overall will go down.”
CIDRAP: More people requesting ‘unvaccinated’ blood for themselves or their children.
The Oregonian: Lawsuit seeks to block PeaceHealth ER staffing deal, alleging violation of Oregon law:
The lawsuit could become a key test of an updated Oregon law that bans the corporate practice of medicine — and how, or whether, the state will enforce the law. Lawmakers strengthened the statute last year to limit ownership workarounds by corporations.
Eugene Emergency Physicians wants the court to declare the arrangement illegal under the law and to prevent PeaceHealth from ending its current contract with the doctors group until the case is resolved.
Republican Mike Rogers, running in the highly-contested open Senate seat in Michigan has some unsurprisingly bad ideas for health care:
Rogers was responding to a question from an attendee who asked him what could be done to lower health care costs. Rogers said he’d be releasing a full health care plan in the coming weeks that would “embrace the freedom of the free market” to start lowering prices. [...]
In the event with supporters, Rogers likened free preventive care — as guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act — to “an auto insurance plan that would pay for your blinker’s light going out.” That would be a great insurance plan, but one that would cost drivers more, he explained.
“We need to start changing the way we look at health care,” Rogers said.
In addition to charging for now-free preventative care (the human version of car blinkers, according to him), he wants to create catastrophic insurance pools for the sickest Americans. Both moves would undo two major components of the ACA.