November 20, 2025 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | November 20, 2025
Committee News
On November 17, Committee Executive Director Dr. Rob Davidson went on The Briefing with Steve Scully show on SiriusXM POTUS to discuss the latest developments in the battle to save health care in America. The same day, Dr. Rob went on The Joy Reid Show for a similar conversation. You can watch the video HERE.
Virginia Committee Advocate Dr. Makunda Abdul-Mbacke is featured in a WRIC article titled, “‘Hospital births save lives’: Doctor warns of consequences as Centra Southside closes maternity unit””:
Starting Friday, Dec. 19, the hospital will discontinue all OB-GYN services, including labor and delivery. Centra officials said fewer than 275 babies are born at the hospital each year, making it difficult to justify keeping full-time staff on duty 24/7.
Dr. Makunda Abdul-Mbacke, a maternal health specialist and OB-GYN, said the decision reflects a troubling national trend — and one that comes with serious consequences.
“Women’s health is not well compensated,” Abdul-Mbacke said. “So, these decisions are fueled by money. It’s a cost-benefit ratio. There is a price tag, and the math does not make sense for a lot of these small-volume hospitals.”
Florida Committee Advocate Dr. Nancy Staats is featured in a Jax Today article titled, “Doctors lobby against scrapping vaccine mandates”:
Dr. Nancy Staats spoke Wednesday to the Duval Legislative Delegation, the locally elected officials who serve in the state Legislature. She asked them to listen to the Florida Medical Association and 78 other medical groups that oppose the elimination of mandated vaccines… Staats told the delegation that [Florida Surgeon General] Ladapo’s proposal is “radical and unscientific.”
“I actually believe Dr. Ladapo should be removed from office, but absent that, I would ask you to please, please resist removing vaccines. This proposal must be stopped before it’s too late, before we are burying our babies,” Staats said.
Government Shutdown News
With Trump applying maximal pressure by stopping SNAP payments, mass firing government employees, and slowing down air travel, seven Senate Democrats and an Independent voted with the Republicans to reopen the government last week. The eight are Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), Tim Kaine (Virginia), Dick Durbin (Illinois), John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), Jacky Rosen (Nevada) and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) voted to support the deal, as did Independent Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
In return, here are the primary things they got in the deal:
Funds most of the government through Jan. 30.
Funds the VA, military construction, the USDA, WIC, SNAP, and Congress itself through September 2026.
Orders that states be reimbursed for any federal expenses they paid during the shutdown including SNAP benefits.
Reverses mass layoffs of federal workers during the shutdown and blocks new mass layoffs until the end of January.
What they did not get is an extension of the enhanced ACA premium subsidies that was the primary demand of Democrats during the nearly two months the government was shut down. They did secure a commitment for a Senate vote on the ACA subsidies next month but any sort of deal to extend them would then face an uphill battle in the House. Republicans seem poised to demand tougher abortion restrictions as part of any deal and both Trump.
The House took a procedural committee to vote last Wednesday morning to advance the shutdown-ending legislation. Later that night, they passed the legislation and Trump signed it into law.
Trump has suggested just giving cash out in lieu of the ACA subsidies. Here’s a round-up of the news around that:
NBC News: As health insurance bills rise, Republicans are still seeking an Obamacare alternative
POLITICO: The White House knows it needs to act on health care affordability. Here’s what’s on the table.
POLITICO: House Republicans float bill mirroring Trump’s health care demands
Trump talking to FOX News about it HERE
POLITICO: Congress’ Obamacare subsidy vote could set off state scramble
BenefitsPRO: Trump-linked think tank has plan to transform ACA premium subsidies
HEALTH CARE un-covered: Health Savings Accounts Won’t Fix Big Insurance’s “Money Sucking”
Replacing the ACA subsidies with handing out cash to patients to spend however they wish could be the death knell for the ACA reports POLITICO:
With direct cash payments from the federal government into special accounts, “healthy people could get much cheaper insurance that has medical underwriting and doesn’t cover preexisting conditions, but that would leave much sicker people in the ACA pool, and likely send it into a death spiral,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan research organization.
Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing to force Republicans to take a vote on extending the ACA subsidies (which tend to benefit patients in red states more than blue states.) Here’s a round-up of news around that:
FIERCE Healthcare: With government reopened, healthcare orgs press lawmakers to act swiftly on ACA subsidies
BenefitsPRO: Two Republicans join Dems to introduce bill extending key ACA subsidies
The Hill: Democrats introduce discharge petition to force vote on extension of ObamaCare subsidies
The Hill: Oz: Trump administration weighing ACA subsidies extension
AP reports that Democrats are understandably skeptical that negotiations with Republicans are being done in good faith.
On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee is held a hearing titled, “The Rising Cost of Health Care: Considering Meaningful Solutions for all Americans,” where they will consider the path forward.
Trump Administration News
Now that SNAP benefits have been restored, the Trump administration is turning the screws in a new way by forcing all recipients to re-apply for benefits under the guise of “eliminating waste and fraud”.
At a conference this week, RFK Jr. postulated without evidence that aluminum in vaccines may be the cause of food allergies.
As it turns out, some in the federal government have actually considered coming for your vaccines:
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he does not want to take vaccines away from Americans. But at a closed-door meeting of Food and Drug Administration vaccine scientists in September, a top official suggested doing just that.
Scientists listened as Tracy Beth Høeg, a lieutenant to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, laid out her plan: She wanted to change the label of all Covid-19 vaccines to say the risks outweighed the benefits for men ages 12 to 24 — a move that would make it prohibitively difficult for men in this age group to receive the vaccine.
MedPage Today reports that Trump has pardoned Tennessee Republican Rep. Diana Harshbarger’s husband, who sold patients medication from China that was not FDA-approved.
Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation to reel in the use of AI death panels in Medicare.
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
The New York Times: Abortion Has Remained Mostly Accessible. That May Soon Change:
One in four abortions in the United States now takes place through telehealth — with pills that people order online. A doctor writes a prescription and a mail-order pharmacy fills it. When the pills arrive, women, including many living in red states, can take them at home to end a pregnancy in its first few months. The method has proved remarkably safe and effective, according to study after study. [...]
But it would be a mistake to assume that this status quo will continue. Republican politicians are working hard to restrict telehealth abortion through a combination of state and federal action. For abortions to remain as accessible as they have been in the past three years, defenders of reproductive health and freedom will need to fight back. They can do so confident that public opinion is on their side. Americans think medication abortion should be legal by a margin of about two to one.
Case in point: Although Ohio’s constitution now reads, “the state shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against an individual’s right” to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, two anti-abortion Republican legislators have introduced a bill that will uniquely impact one of the most common abortion methods: abortion pills.
The State: Abortion medications targeted by SC lawmakers at state, federal level
Meanwhile, anti-abortion Republicans in Wisconsin want to pass a law requiring the use of “catch kits” for for miscarriages or abortions:
Republicans are proposing a bill that would mandate women use ‘catch kits’ when they have a miscarriage or abortion—forcing them to bag up their pregnancy tissue and bring it to the doctor as medical waste. [...]
The mandate would apply to anyone who uses an “abortion-inducing drug,” whether they’re ending an unwanted pregnancy or completing a miscarriage. Republicans are framing the legislation as an environmental protection—claiming the bill will ensure that “harmful endocrine disruptors and pathological waste does not contaminate our lakes, streams, rivers, and wetlands.”
Planned Parenthood says that 20 of its clinics have closed since the passage of the Trump budget bill in July. A new report, titled, “The Harms of “Defunding” Planned Parenthood”, warns of a grim future for the organization and for patients across the country.
POLITICO reports that Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and its affiliated super PAC plan to pour $80 million into electing anti-abortion candidates in 2026 in at least four battleground states.
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit to compel the FDA to disclose records related to the agency’s review of its regulations on mifepristone.
AP: South Carolina looks at most restrictive abortion bill in the US as opponents keep pushing limits:
Sending women who get abortions to prison for decades. Outlawing IUDs. Sharply restricting in-vitro fertilization. These are the strictest abortion prohibitions and punishments in the nation being considered by South Carolina lawmakers, even as opponents of the procedure are divided over how far to go.
Anti-abortion zealots have a new tactic in their war against abortion: making OB/GYN residency abortion care training “opt-in”.
Other Health Care News
New polling shows that almost half of all Americans are worried about being able to afford their health care. It’s the highest level of concern recorded since West Health and Gallup began tracking the measure in 2021.
MedPage Today: No Clear Autism Link With Prenatal Tylenol, Major Review Finds
NHPR: NH one step closer to imposing work requirements for Medicaid expansion recipients