January 7, 2026 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | January 7, 2026
Committee News
On Dec. 10, two physicians joined Committee Advocate and state legislator Rep. Matt Longjohn, MD for a press call highlighting a letter signed by over 260 Michigan physicians, addressed to Michigan legislators in support of House Democrats’ recently introduced Empower Parents, Protect Communities bill package. The call was covered on Michigan Public, local TV, and online.
Committee Exec. Dir. Dr. Rob Davidson’s interview with the Left Hook with Wajahat Ali was published on Dec. 21: The GOP’s Pro-Death Agenda: What You Need to Know with Dr. Rob Davidson. On Dec. 22, he joined SiriusXM Urban View’s The Lurie Daniel Favors Show and SiriusXM Progress‘ Mornings with Zerlina show with guest host Alex Berg to talk health care news of the day, RFK Jr., and vaccine misinformation.
On Dec. 23, the Ohio Capital Journal published a piece titled, “Ohio doc, colleagues bash GOP senators for failing to stop insurance hikes” featuring Dr. Rob and Committee Advocates Dr. Catherine Romanos and Dr. Makunda Abdul-Mbacke. The physicians assailed Ohio GOP Sens. Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno for their failure to stop the expiration of the ACA premium tax subsidies. Instead of defending his vote against extending the subsidies, Moreno lashed out at Dr. Romanos and the news outlet for what he called “garbage ‘journalism.’”
On Jan. 1, Dr. Rob was featured in a FOX News 47 piece titled, “Healthcare subsidies set to expire, leaving hundreds of thousands of Michiganders facing higher costs”.
On Jan. 6, Committee Board Chair Dr. Kristen Lyerly appeared on The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder to discuss RFK Jr. and HHS narrowing the guidance on childhood vaccines.
Top News Stories
RFK Jr. has changed the recommended number of childhood vaccines from 17 to 11, citing the policies of Denmark, a country, unlike the US, with universal health care coverage. Kennedy said unironically, “This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.”
The CDC said that parents could choose to have their children receive some previously recommended vaccines, including those for flu, rotavirus, COVID-19, meningitis, and hepatitis A and B, after “shared clinical decision-making.” However, many parents have no idea what “shared clinical decision-making” even means.
Related:
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a key vote for RFK Jr.’s confirmation, is livid, saying the decision is being made based on no scientific input: “Two children have died in my state from whooping cough. All of this was preventable with safe and effective vaccines. The vaccine schedule IS NOT A MANDATE. It’s a recommendation giving parents the power. Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker,” he tweeted. Health care advocates are left wondering why Sen. Cassidy is not doing more (like exercising Congressional oversight powers and holding RFK Jr. accountable) rather than simply tweeting his displeasure.
On top of all of this, CIDRAP reports that CMS will no longer require states to report childhood vaccination levels.
In other news, the Trump administration, via HHS, is slashing billions of dollars from welfare programs, mostly those that benefit children, exclusively in blue states as a response to a welfare fraud case in Minnesota. The funds are being withheld from the Child Care and Development Fund, the Social Services Block Grant, and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF. HUFFPOST reports that, “it’s unclear what led the administration to clamp down on TANF in a handful of blue states, since the program was not implicated in Minnesota’s child nutrition fraud.”
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
The Hill: This week on The Hill: GOP faces health care bind with subsidies expired:
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters in December he plans to bring the bill [to extend the subsidies for three years] to the floor this week, according to CBS News. It is expected to pass and head to the Senate, where it will likely undergo bipartisan reform to get the necessary 60 votes to advance.
Democrats plan to take full advantage of the GOP’s situation, reports POLITICO.
The New York Times: With Obamacare’s Higher Premiums Come Difficult Decisions
Wendell Potter at HEALTH CARE un-coveredpoints out that the other shoe is about to drop on Americans when it comes to the cost of their health care:
[T]here’s another aspect to America’s looming health care crisis that almost no one is talking about.
This is the other side of the coin – the out-of-pocket expenses that everyday consumers pay for doctor visits or prescription drugs – because of higher deductibles, or because of the growing number of patients who will risk not having any insurance at all next year because they can no longer afford it.
Trump Administration News
POLITICO: Trump’s drug-pricing deals won’t benefit most Americans today. They could over time.
A federal judge has ruled that HHS may resume sharing the personal data of certain Medicaid enrollees with deportation officials:
[T]he judge’s decision…strictly limits the scope of data from the 22 plaintiff states that can be shared — for now only allowing the agency to hand over basic biographical information about immigrants residing in the United States illegally.
The New York Times reports that the NIH has cut funding for research aimed at better understanding the genetic diversity of Africans and those of African descent. Although hundreds of grants related to diversity, equity, and inclusion were restored after court orders late last year, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya told journalist Paul Thacker they’d be canceled when they come up for renewal.
States have begun receiving money from the $50 billion rural hospital “hunger games” fund from the Republican’s big bill of 2025. However, as Talking Points Memo points out, the Trump administration can still ‘claw back’ cash and they’re being partisan about which states get funds:
“We have an administration which just says right out, ‘We’re gonna cut money to blue states and blue communities,’ and it is doing it,” Adam Searing, an attorney and research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, told TPM in November. “If you happen to live in a community that we disagree with politically, too bad.” [...]
Since the funding will be recalculated annually over the life of the five-year program, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz reportedly said in a call with reporters that the administration could “claw back” funds if a state doesn’t enact policies it committed to in its application. Searing suggested that was a possibility in November, telling TPM that CMS “can do pretty much what they want and the states can’t complain about it.”
FIERCE Healthcare has a rundown on which states are getting the most money.
Apparently, Trump takes daily aspirin at a higher level than recommended because, he said, “I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart, I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart.”
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
The Washington Post: Abortion pill ban is unconstitutional, Wyoming’s top court rules:
“Although a woman’s decision to have an abortion ends the fetal life, the decision is, nevertheless, one she makes concerning her own health care,” Wyoming Chief Justice Lynne Boomgaarden wrote in the court’s ruling.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has implemented an abortion ban after the Department of Justice issued a memo last week that prohibited the VA from providing abortion services to veterans and their dependents who become pregnant as a result of rape or incest or in cases when their health is endangered by carrying a pregnancy to term.
The decision, based on a Dept. of Justice ruling, means that the VA is not even allowed to provide abortion-related counseling.
The Guardian: Abortion may no longer be a top priority for Democratic voters ahead of 2026 midterms, polls show. However polling from EMILYs List “also found that 49% of female voters consider threats to abortion rights to be a ‘dealbreaker’”.
Yet another anti-abortion group is urging the EPA to add mifepristone to its list of water contaminants.
KFF Health News: Iowa Doesn’t Have Enough OB-GYNs. The State’s Abortion Ban Might Be Making It Worse.
Other Health Care News
On Jan. 1, Minnesota’s Paid Family Medical Leave program opened for the first time. The Committee advocated strongly for the passage of the legislation that created it. From coverage by MPR News:
Nearly 12,000 people have applied for paid family and medical leave in the ramp up by the first couple days of the program’s rollout…The program went live a day ahead of schedule on Wednesday, and officials running it said it’s gone off without a hitch so far.
Three-quarters of Minnesota workers are expected to receive more benefits than they had previously under the state program. It will likely be a big political talking point ahead of the 2026 election.
Also on Jan. 1, Nevada’s new state-level public option for health insurance, the Battle Born State Plan, went into effect. With the expiration of the ACA enhanced premium subsidies, the timing for this Committee-supported effort could not have been better.
MedPage Today reports that the CDC has adopted the contentious Hepatitis B vaccine recommendation from RFK Jr.’s anti-vaxx stacked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice.
MedPage Today: HHS Cancels Grants to Pediatrician Group
Becker’s Hospital Review: Notable healthcare policies taking effect in 2026
The Guardian: Canadian officials say US health institutions no longer dependable for accurate information
CNN: More than 2,000 measles cases reported in the US this year as ongoing outbreaks threaten elimination status as South Carolina measles total climbs to 188, the US has seen nearly 28,000 whooping cough cases this year, and Flu reaches highest levels in the US in 25 years. One pediatrician wrote, “Things that I can’t believe I am doing as a pediatrician on a Sunday morning in December 2025: Triaging patients with fever and rash in my office parking lot to avoid bringing a child inside who might expose everyone in our waiting rooms to measles. And yet here we are …”
RELATED from The Washington Post: U.S. vaccination rates are plunging
RELATED from The Hill: Dr. Oz calls flu vaccine ‘controversial of late’
GOOD NEWS: Drugmakers plan to cut prices on around nine drugs.
BAD NEWS: Drugmakers plan to raise prices on at least 350 medications including vaccines against COVID, RSV and shingles and blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance.