June 23, 2025 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | June 23, 2025
Reproductive Rights
Yesterday marked the three-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that reversed Roe v. Wade and opened the floodgates to abortion bans across the country. Since that decision, thirteen states are currently enforcing total abortion bans and other states ban abortion as early as six weeks.
Adriana Smith, the pregnant, brain dead woman in Georgia who was being kept alive to deliver her baby gave birth by emergency Caesarean section June 13 and was taken off life support on Tuesday last week. The baby was born three months premature and weighed 1 pound and 13 ounces. Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, told 11 Alive that all women should have the right to make decisions about their own body.
Wisconsin Committee Advocate Dr. Nike Mourikes spoke at a press event at the WI State Capitol on June 17. The event was co-hosted by the Committee and state partners to mark the third anniversary of the deadly Dobbs decision, honor the lives lost to abortion bans, and to discuss what is at stake right now.
Despite the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022, the number of abortions has increased in the U.S. since the decision was handed down. The increase is being driven by abortion pills prescribed by telehealth.
Rep. Kat Cammack, an anti-abortion Republican legislator in Florida, revealed that she nearly died from an ectopic pregnancy in 2024 when treatment to end the pregnancy was delayed while doctors determined if they were legally allowed to treat her given the state’s draconian abortion laws. In an Orwellian twist, Cammack says she blames Democrats.
In last week’s newsletter, we shared how a Texas cop had searched Flock license plate cameras nationwide, searching for a woman who got an abortion. In response to the reporting by 404 Media, Illinois officials are now investigating.
On June 24, the administration of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sent a letter to hospitals, reminding them that the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) is still in effect and they are required to perform medically-necessary abortions if needed to save the pregnant person’s life.
When asked if he supported a woman’s autonomy over her own body at a town hall event, anti-abortion Michigan state Rep. Karl Bohnak replied, “I don’t.”
Attacks on Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act
On June 17, the Committee partnered with SEIU, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, and other groups for an event outside of Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears' election night party to remind Virginians of the gubernatorial candidate's silence on the issue of looming Medicaid cuts. Committee Advocate Dr. Andrew Wolf spoke at the event.
On June 21, the Committee partnered with Fair Share America for the Somerville, NJ stop of their “Stop the Billionaire Giveaway” national bus tour. Committee Advocate Dr. Victor Sloan participated in the event.
While it has been widely reported that the Republicans’ Big, Beautiful Tax Giveaway (BBTG) bill will throw 16 million Americans off their health insurance, an under-reported fact is that it will take a whopping $1 trillion of federal spending out of the health care system.
How desperate are Republicans to hide the fact that this is a massive tax giveaway? So desperate that they are trying a new smoke-and-mirrors accounting gimmick called “current policy baseline” to make it look like it will raise the deficit less than the $3.8 trillion that the Joint Committee on Taxation predicted in May.
A new KFF tracking poll shows that about 61% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents -- and 72% of the subset who identify with Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement -- support the BBTG. However, once they’re made aware of its provisions, support tanks.
Senate leaders want to begin voting on their version of the bill as early as tomorrow so they can meet their self-imposed deadline to have it signed into law by July 4th. However, POLITICO reports that they may miss that deadline due to recalcitrant Republicans in vulnerable districts.
Included in the Senate version of the BBTG is a provision to limit medical school loans that may have a chilling effect on the number of people entering the medical profession.
Enrollment in the ACA’s health insurance marketplace has soared over the past four years but that’s likely to be reversed because the Trump administration, in addition to making the paperwork requirements more onerous, has shortened the length of time people have to apply for ACA health care coverage.
Third Way, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, issued a report this week showing that medical debt will surge in the U.S. if the BBTG is passed.
In an interview with NPR, KFF”s Sarah Kliff points out that Republicans are trying to force documented immigrants out of the ACA marketplaces.
In the BBTG, House Republicans included a provision that limits new provider taxes and the Senate version of the BBTG goes even further. As NBC reports, this may be the death knell for many rural hospitals.
Trump Administration News
Nashville Banner: ICE Arrested a Pregnant Tennessee Woman — While in Detention in Louisiana, She had a Stillbirth
Trump’s tariffs are about to have a big impact on the cost of health care in the U.S., AXIOS reports.
The CDC is losing qualified people who can no longer tolerate being part of the dismantling of the American health care system.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has joined the American Medical Association in calling for RFK, Jr. to be investigated for firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP.)
Six former ACIP Chairs wrote an op-ed in STAT, warning that the U.S. may lose access to life-saving immunizations and the ability to respond to future public health threats.
Science took a look at the eight incoming members appointed by RFK, Jr. so far and, as expected, they are far less qualified than the people they are replacing.
Sen. Bill Cassidy issued a statement saying that the ACIP should NOT meet at this time due to questions surrounding the qualifications of its new members.
New polling from AXIOS-Ipsos shows the challenges in fighting against RFK, Jr.’s harmful actions and policies: many people support SOME of what he’s doing.
Other Health Care News
Republicans are joining Democrats in demanding reforms to the Medicaid Advantage (MA) program. One of the authors of the Medicare Modernization Act that created MA in 2003, former Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-PA), wrote an op-ed in The Hill titled, “I helped create Medicare Advantage. Here’s why I believe it needs reform.”
Two Republican members of Congressmen, both physicians, are also calling for specific MA reforms. Writing in The Washington Times, they call for MA reform as well as passing policies that reduce the burdens of prior authorization and reform of the Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) system.
Insurers claim they are going to make prior authorization for medical treatments easier, according to The Washington Post.
MedPage Today reports that Oregon has enacted a law imposing stringent new regulations on corporate ownership of physician practices in the state.
Oregon Committee Member Dr. Antonio Germann provided testimony on the bill at a hearing before the state’s Senate Health Care Committee in March.
Remember ivermectin, the horse wormer that the anti-vaxx crowd was certain could cure COVID-19? Writing in The Atlantic, Dr. Benjamin Mazer says it’s now being touted as a cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes, autism, carpal tunnel syndrome, crow’s feet, brain fog, and bee stings, too.
The 2025 measles outbreak has proven that a double dose of the measles vaccine is 97% effective against the highly contagious disease.