June 10, 2026 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | June 10, 2026
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
At long last, the FDA has begun its promised investigation into the safety of the abortion medication mifepristone which has been approved and used for decades and is used in 65% of abortions. The timing suggests the Trump administration wanted to avoid releasing the results prior to the midterm elections in November though they claim the delay was because they “needed new data systems for the effort.” More from the Wall Street Journal:
Some of the administration officials said the agency had been making preparations by acquiring data and examining whether a study was feasible. They said the administration had kicked the study into high gear because of conversations with antiabortion groups and a coming October deadline, set by a Louisiana judge this spring as part of ongoing litigation over the abortion pill. The administration is aiming for a robust study that will withstand legal criticism, the administration officials said. [...]
In addition to the FDA study using the agency’s own drug safety systems, the agency is also considering hiring a contractor to acquire and analyze data on mifepristone use, the administration officials said.
Ohio Republicans are continuing their efforts to overrule the will of the voters:
Ohio conservatives are back at it—this time with a ballot measure to repeal the abortion protections voters overwhelmingly passed in 2023. [...]
Their latest attempt is a proposed amendment with a deceptively benign name—“Reproductive Healthcare and Legislative Authority Over Abortion”—that would strip abortion out of the constitution entirely. In its place, voters would get protections for “contraception, miscarriage treatment, and fertility care”—while the regulation of abortion would become “the exclusive authority of the Ohio General Assembly.”
In other words: hand abortion back to the same Republican legislators voters just overruled.
Health Care Affordability
The Trump administration has released its guidance to states for implementing the Medicaid work requirements put in place by last summer’s big billionaire tax giveaway. Experts estimate that as many as 5 million people will lose coverage by 2034, largely because of administrative hurdles, without a meaningful increase in the number of people employed. Pregnant women, parents of young children, veterans with disabilities, and “medically frail” people are among the groups that are exempted. POLITICO has more on that HERE. One survey found out that most Medicaid enrollees don’t even know what’s about to hit them.
Trump Administration News
RFK Jr.’s war on vaccines is starting to manifest in a very predictable way: an increase in preventable diseases. The New York Times reports that “doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis.”
The New York Times has also discovered that RFK Jr. has demonstrated little interest in managing the sprawling HHS he is responsible for as he focuses on his pet interests. “[H]e is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful,” they write.
Dr. Oz took his turn at the White House Press Room podium last week and made a couple of wild statements about health care. First, he claimed that 35% of the people on the ACA rolls may be there fraudulently. He also said that Trump’s big billionaire tax giveaway, which also has the Orwellian name “the Working Families Tax Cut Act”, saved Medicaid.