July 23, 2025 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | July 23, 2025
The Committee in the News
On July 15, Committee Executive Director Dr. Rob Davidson joined KALW's Your Call, an hour-long daily news show on the independent San Francisco NPR station, to discuss the impact of Medicaid cuts. You can listen to the segment HERE.
The same day, Dr. Rob appeared on the The Mark Thompson Show on YouTube, a daily live streaming news show with a wide audience. You can listen to that segment HERE.
On July 21, Dr. Rob appeared on the Stand Up! With Pete Dominick show. You can listen to the segment HERE (Dr. Rob’s segment starts around the 29:30 mark.)
On July 22, Dr. Rob appeared on The Bill Press Podcast. You can listen to his interview HERE.
Committee Advocate Dr. Nita Schwartz penned an op-ed for the Reno Gazette-Journal titled, “Cutting Medicaid means abandoning our elders”.
Reproductive Rights
A federal court has ruled that West Virginia’s near-total ban on mifepristone abortion pills may stand.
Planned Parenthood got a temporary reprieve from its funding being cut by the Trump budget bill.
The Guardian reports that the Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7 million worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.
The Trump administration is using Title X funds, historically focused primarily on providing contraception, to open a fertility clinic. They’re calling it an “infertility training center.”
Maine Family Planning is suing the Trump administration over the stripping of Medicaid funds from health care providers that perform abortions and receive more than $800,000 in federal reimbursements.
Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act News
POLITICO: GOP megabill’s final score: $3.4T in red ink and 10 million kicked off health insurance, CBO says.
File this one under “Too little, MUCH too late”: Hawley introduces bill to reverse Medicaid cuts he voted for.
Yet another study shows that there will be nearly 1,500 unnecessary deaths in the U.S. each year because of the cuts to Medicaid in Trump’s budget bill. Another predicts an increase in overdose deaths by 1,000 each year.
MedPage Today spells out five specific ways the Trump budget bill will impact physicians.
More than 300 rural hospitals may close because of Trump’s budget bill, according to research conducted by the University of North Carolina’s Sheps Center for Health Services Research on behalf of Senate Democrats and revealed in a letter to Republican leadership in June.
These rural hospital closures are exacerbating an already bad situation with 80% of U.S. counties containing health care deserts.
Since many of the provisions of the Trump budget bill don’t kick in for months or years, hospitals believe they can fight to keep them from being implemented.
A new analysis from KFF reveals that health plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces are requesting their biggest premium hikes since 2018, in some cases over 30%. This is part of an Obamacare “double whammy”. The other “whammy” is a sharp drop in the federal subsidies that most consumers depend on to buy the coverage.
A coalition of 20 Democratic attorneys general is suing the Trump administration to block implementation of a rule they say undermines the Affordable Care Act.
The AP has confirmed that the Trump administration has an agreement to turn over the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to find “the location of aliens” across the country.
Trump Administration News
The $50-billion “Rural Health Transformation Program” (RHTP) component of Trump’s budget bill was put in place to keep rural hospitals from going under due to the capping of provider taxes that help fund their operations. Industry analysts are concerned. Speaking to KFF Health News, the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies said, “As long as it’s a government slush fund where politics decides where the money goes, then there’s going to be a mismatch between where those funds go and what it is consumers need.”
Calley Means, brother of Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General Casey Means, has quite a health care grift going.
AXIOS reports that RFK, Jr. may already be running for president.
After firing all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) who he said had too many conflicts of interest to make decisions on vaccines, RFK, Jr. hasn’t released a promised disclosure of any conflicts of interest the seven people he chose to replace them have, STAT reports.
Earlier this month, Kennedy announced that his department is immediately restricting undocumented immigrants' access to Head Start, community health centers, and other federal benefits.
AXIOS reports that federally funded clinics that are supposed to serve everyone are now trying to figure out if they need to demand proof of citizenship before treating a patient. Leaders told AXIOS that they don't track patients' immigration status, let alone ask for proof of citizenship before providing care.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is urging everyone in his state to go to health care centers to get the health care they need, regardless of their immigration status.
Democratic attorneys general from 20 states and D.C. are suing the Trump administration over the move.
A new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office found that cuts to NIH in Trump’s budget bill will result in fewer new drugs being developed.
In a move that has many people surprised, the Trump administration is working to incentivize site-neutral payments. Unsurprisingly, the American Hospital Association is against it.
STAT: Why MAHA’s push on Coca-Cola and ice cream is ‘nutritionally hilarious’
Other Health Care News
Major insurers recently pledged a set of voluntary commitments to streamline prior authorization practices that delay patients receiving necessary medical treatments. Turns out, they have a LOT of work to do.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar discusses what she calls “the most baffling part of the Republican budget bill”: Perversely rewarding states with high error rates.
HEALTH CARE un-covered, the Substack from health care advocate Wendell Potter, has a “Sunlight Report” on the health insurance giant UnitedHealth
An analysis from the National Bureau of Economic Research found hospital acquisition of physician practices is driving up the cost of health care with “no discernible effects on quality measures.”
A new survey reveals that only 35% to 40% of US pregnant women and parents of young children say they intend to fully vaccinate their child.
Meanwhile, Florida’s surgeon general Joseph Ladapo continues his anti-vaccine crusade.