December 17, 2025 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | December 17, 2025
Committee News
Committee Executive Director Dr. Rob Davidson appeared on The Jim Acosta Show on Dec. 11 to discuss RFK Jr. and the changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.
On Dec. 10, Committee Member Dr. Heidi Appel spoke at a press conference with Senators Schumer, Klobuchar, Murphy, and Kim as they called for a 3-year extension to the ACA tax credits the day before the anticipated Senate vote. The event received extensive media coverage.
Committee Member Dr. Heidi Jenney is featured in a Michigan Public article titled, “Physicians back Michigan legislation to expand vaccine access”.
Democratic state lawmakers introduced an 11-bill package to expand vaccine information and access. More than 260 physicians signed a letter in support of the package. [...]
Dr. Heidi Jenney, an emergency medicine physician in Taylor, said this package couldn’t come “at a more critical time.”
The letter was organized by the Committee.
On Dec. 11, Committee Advocate Dr. Raj Singhal joined Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, former CMS Administrator, and Protect Our Care for a press call calling on Congress to extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits.
On Dec. 11, Committee Advocates Dr. Frederick Southwick and Dr. Nancy Staat appeared on the WJCT News radio show “First Coast Connect” about the FL Department of Health meeting to consider abolishing four mandatory school vaccinations. You can listen to it HERE.
Dr. Frederick Southwick is also featured in a Florida Phoenix article titled, “Florida school, daycare vaccine tussle kicks off in Panama City Beach”.
Reproductive Freedom Taskforce Member Dr. Misha Pangasa was extensively quoted in an article in The Copper Courier titled, “Explained: Why AZ doctors are fighting these abortion rules in court right now” about the laws still on the books that make abortion access difficult even after Prop 139 passed - including a ban on abortion medication via telehealth.
On December 11, the Oregon Capitol Chronicle published an op-ed by Committee Advocate Evan Saulino titled, “ACA tax credits helped more Oregonians find coverage. Will Congress keep them?”
On Dec. 13, The Minnesota Star Tribune published an op-ed by Committee Advocate Kate Lynch titled, “Minnesota can’t let Big Pharma hike prices unchecked”.
Attacks on Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act
Last week, two separate votes in the Senate to avoid the devastating impact of enhanced ACA health insurance subsidies expiring at the end of the year both failed. Things haven’t improved much since then.
In the House, they will vote on a bill today (Wednesday) that does not extend the subsidies. CNN breaks down what we know about that bill HERE. Speaker Mike Johnson says he will NOT allow a vote on an amendment to extend the subsidies which has vulnerable Republicans furious:
An infuriated Rep. Mike Lawler left a closed-door House Republican meeting Tuesday and sounded off on GOP leaders who are planning to allow key Obamacare subsidies to expire in two weeks.
“This is absolute bullshit,” the New York Republican said.
“I think it’s idiotic not to have an up-or-down vote on this issue,” he told reporters of leaders’ refusal to hold a vote on a modified version of the expiring subsidies. “It is political malpractice.”
Despite this, POLITICO reports that House GOP moderates signal they’ll fall in line with Johnson’s health plan.
Meanwhile, Democrats remain steadfast in their demand for a clean extension of the subsidies while negotiations continue.
Last ditch efforts are happening in both the House and the Senate but few believe they will bear fruit.
Recent polling by KFF shows that 1 in 3 ACA Marketplace enrollees say they would “Very Likely” shop for a cheaper plan if their premium payments doubled and 1 in 4 say they “Very Likely” would go without insurance.
KFF Health News: Trump’s Idea for Health Accounts Has Been Tried. Millions of Patients Have Ended Up in Debt.
The Guardian: Obamacare expiration will have ‘death spiral’ effect on US healthcare according to experts
An under-the-radar bit of Medicare news is a 15% reduction to Medicare payments for nearly 800 lab tests that is set to take effect Jan. 31, followed by additional cuts in following years.
Trump Administration News
The Washington Post: VA plans to abruptly eliminate tens of thousands of health care jobs.
Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, recently asserted that “no fewer than 10” kids had died from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. A recent internal memo from staff scientists shows that is false:
Apparently, rather than waiting for the finalized report that he had ordered, [Prasad] sent staff the Nov. 28 memo before the scientists had completed their assigned work. [...]
This means that Prasad’s memo opened with a number of deaths that is 200% to 500% of the number that the scientists he assigned to study the problem reported.
The [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)] vote on hepatitis vaccines is part of a broad assault on vaccine access, said CIDRAP Director Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, who leads the Vaccine Integrity Project, which aims to safeguard vaccine use. … “If the political appointees running our health agencies and communities are going to ignore data and evidence, we must absolutely ignore them,” said Osterholm.
It’s not just for kids anymore: FDA to investigate whether adult deaths linked to coronavirus vaccine
Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaxx group founded by RFK Jr. is going there:
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have said he won’t take vaccines away from anyone, but that’s exactly what the anti-vaccine organization he founded asked the Food and Drug Administration to do in a petition this week. [...]
Children’s Health Defense, the organization founded by Kennedy, this week filed a citizen’s petition asking FDA commissioner Marty Makary to deem Moderna’s and Pfizer’s COVID vaccines “misbranded” and revoke their licenses “due to a lack of compliance with FDA regulations.”
The agency is required to respond.
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
The New York Times reports that, last week, a federal appeals court allowed the Trump administration to continue withholding funding from Planned Parenthood as mandated in the Billionaire Tax Break Bill Trump signed in July.
Indiana Capital Chronicle: Indiana appeals court upholds privacy of abortion reports
Students for Life of America is pushing the EPA to include mifepristone on its list of drinking water contaminants:
“People need to understand that they are likely drinking other people’s abortions,” said Student for Life’s head of policy Kristi Hamrick. “Do you really need a test to determine that it’s a bad idea to flush placenta, tissue, blood and human remains into our waterways?”
Meanwhile, anti-abortion zealots (including Vice President Mike Pence) are calling for FDA Commissioner Martin Makary to be fired for not moving fast enough on the agency’s “safety” review of mifepristone after he announced it would be delayed until after the 2026 midterm elections.
Rewire News Group: After Abortion, Some People Report Worsening Mental Health. It’s Not About Regret, Experts Say
The Washington Post: More women accessing abortion pills online despite red state efforts.
Bloomberg Law: Florida, Texas Again Sue FDA Over Abortion Pill Approvals
A new study published in the JAMA Health Forum shows that “States that enacted abortion bans with no health exception experienced a substantial increase in the number of Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) violations that were obstetric related, with an additional 1.18 violations per quarter.”
Other Health Care News
The Washington Post: Hundreds quarantined as South Carolina measles outbreak accelerates.
Newsweek: Oregon Sets Whooping Cough Case Record
CIDRAP reports on a new study showing that mRNA vaccines are paying huge dividends:
A large national cohort study from France didn’t observe any increase in all-cause mortality in adults up to four years after receipt of a COVID mRNA vaccine, and vaccination was linked to a 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID-19 and a 25% lower risk of death from any cause.
The study, published last week in JAMA Network Open, is the first population-based study to look at differences in all-cause mortality between people who did and did not receive COVID vaccines 4 years after their first dose. It’s also the first study to examine long-term mortality among young people who are less likely to experience severe disease, according to the authors.
Not only that, the vaccines “sharply decreased the risk of emergency department and urgent care visits in children, according to new data released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” reports The New York Times.
In addition, via CIDRAP: “Pregnant women vaccinated against COVID-19 less likely to be hospitalized or deliver prematurely, new data show”.
Despite all of this, CNN reports that the FDA is planning to put its most serious, “black box” warning on COVID-19 vaccines despite experts saying it is completely unnecessary. Black box warnings are typically reserved for potentially life-threatening reactions. FDA Commissioner Makary denies the reporting.
Also, yet another study, this one by the World Health Organization, shows that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
AXIOS reports that some health insurers are not being transparent about their negotiated prices, in violation of federal rules which could leave employers in the dark when shopping for workplace coverage.
Still, a large share (82%) of Americans reported being satisfied with their health insurance coverage, an NBC News poll found, though one-fourth had denials of care in the prior 2 years and a Gallup poll found that 23% believe the U.S. healthcare system is in crisis.
For years, Sen. Ron Johnson has been spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation about COVID-19 and the safety of vaccines.
He’s promoted disproven treatments for COVID-19 and claimed, without evidence, that athletes are “dropping dead on the field” after getting the COVID-19 vaccination. Now the Wisconsin politician is endorsing a book by a discredited doctor promoting an unproven and dangerous treatment for autism and a host of ailments: chlorine dioxide, a chemical used for disinfecting and bleaching.
You are doing a disservice to health care in the United States by not highlighting and urging the immediate passage of a national non-profit Medicare For All legislation. It is the basic required step to a system that can deliver high quality and equitable heal care.
George L Pauk MD