November 26, 2025 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | November 26, 2025
Committee News
On Nov. 21, Committee Advocate Dr. Chelsea Daniels was quoted in a States Newsroom article – “Anti-abortion groups, lawmakers push feds for more permanent ‘defunding’ of Planned Parenthood” – about how the continuous federal attacks on reproductive health care, including defunding Planned Parenthood and Medicaid cuts, are impacting providers and patients.
Dr. Rob Davidson spoke about the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits and the dire need to extend them on The Briefing with Steve Scully on SiriusXM POTUS and The Joy Reid Show on Nov. 17, and on On Democracy with Fred Wellman (also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify) on Nov. 21. He also joined Stand Up! With Pete Dominick on Nov. 21 to discuss the tax credits plus RFK Jr. accountability and attacks of mifepristone.
On Nov. 20, Committee Advocate Dr. Makunda Abdul-Mbacke, an OB/GYN in Axton, Va., virtually joined House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05) and Rep. Jennifer McClellan (VA-04) to record a discussion on how Medicaid cuts, higher ACA premiums, and hospital closures impact patients, specifically in rural communities. The recording was edited and posted on Instagram and Facebook.
Attacks on Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act
Last week, Trump doubled down on his push to give Americans cash in lieu of extending the ACA premium subsidies, saying it’s “the only healthcare [he] will support or approve”:
Still no word on how individuals will be able to “negotiate” with the giant health insurance corporations. Also no word on if he’ll be removing requirements for insurance policies to have certain basic components like the ACA does. Also worth noting that people will only be able to use the cash to buy health insurance from the very same “big, fat, rich insurance companies” he rails against. In other words, they’ll get their money either way.
Trump says he’s “negotiating with lawmakers” on health care and has “had personal talks with some Democrats.” POLITICO reports that no Democrat will cop to it. “Lol no,” one Senate Democratic spokesperson told them.
Trump was reportedly going to release his concepts of a plan this week, one that would put an income limit on who’s eligible for the tax credits, require recipients to make a minimum premium payment, and eliminate $0 premium plans that Republicans say fuel fraud. However, the release was cancelled after pushback from his own party. The White House says the announcement has simply been postponed.
Sen. Rick Scott has introduced the “More Affordable Care Act” that enables Obamacare customers to use a “Trump Health Freedom Account” that resembles a health savings account.
Some Republicans want to go through another reconciliation process – the same process used to pass the Big Bill law that guts Medicaid last summer – to pass a new health care plan.
POLITICO: Looming affordability crisis set to hit Americans with health insurance through work
POLITICO: Republicans face a health care backlash in Georgia as subsidies set to expire
Trump Administration News
The CDC’s “Autism and Vaccines” page is now pushing the conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism. The webpage has these “key points” listed at the top:
The claim “vaccines do not cause autism” is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.
HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.
The key points are followed by this:
The asterisk on the “Vaccines do not cause Autism” heading takes you to an apparent “Cassidy Clause” at the very bottom of the page:
Sen. Cassidy reportedly finds the changes “deeply troubling” but chose not to criticize RFK Jr. who took full responsibility for the changes that medical groups are calling dangerous. One longtime CDC employee told Mother Jones, “The best way I can put it is it feels like we’re on a hijacked airplane.”
Via STAT, we learn that RFK Jr. talks to Trump almost daily with his staff sitting on the floor around him to give him guidance.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Calley Means, the brother of Casey Means, the health care influencer/grifter who is Trump’s pick for Surgeon General, is returning to the White House to serve in RFK Jr.’s HHS as a senior adviser.
The Washington Post: JFK’s granddaughter, Tatiana Schlossberg, reveals terminal cancer diagnosis:
In the essay, Schlossberg also denounced the actions of her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as the secretary of Health and Human Services, citing the strain she says he placed on the nation’s health care system and scientific research.
She noted that under Kennedy’s leadership, the Trump administration slashed National Institutes of Health grants and enacted regulatory measures that imperiled medical research and access to treatments, including those crucial to her own survival.
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
GOOD NEWS DEPT: Legislation in South Carolina that would allow judges to sentence women who get abortions to long prison sentences and that could restrict the use of IUDs and in vitro fertilization failed to get out of a legislative subcommittee last week.
BAD NEWS DEPT: North Dakota’s Supreme Court reinstated a near-total abortion ban this week, reversing a judge’s earlier decision and making abortion once again an illegal felony in the state. The only exceptions are to protect a pregnant woman’s life or health, or in the case of rape or incest, but only in the first six weeks of pregnancy.
Bridge Michigan reports that 175 Republicans in Congress sent a letter to RFK Jr. last week demanding that he “immediately reinstate” a ban on mail-order abortion pills. They are using the thoroughly-debunked “study” by the Ethics and Public Policy Center to claim mifepristone is dangerous (it’s not) and saying without evidence that “bad actors are…secretly poisoning women without their knowledge [and] forcing women to take abortion drugs against their will.”
Three Republican-led states have moved to broaden their lawsuit seeking to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, aiming to block the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of a new generic version.
ProPublica reports that a Texas woman has died after being refused an abortion that would have saved her life.
In Idaho, a woman had to be air-lifted to a different state to receive a potentially life-saving abortion.
Other Health Care News
FIERCE Healthcare reports that House Democrats have introduced a bill to expand Medicare drug price negotiations to the commercial market:
The bill, titled the Lowering Drug Costs for American Families Act, would allow Medicare to negotiate prices for more drugs each year, from 20 to 50, and make those prices available in the commercial insurance market. It could cap annual out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions and insulin at $35 per month.
The legislation also seeks to close a “loophole” established in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that allows pharmaceutical companies to dodge negotiation for a drug that has orphan status.
NBC News: Rep. Rob Bresnahan sold stock in several Medicaid providers before voting for cuts:
A week before he voted to significantly cut Medicaid, Rep. Rob Bresnahan… offloaded up to $130,000 worth of stock in Centene, Elevance Health, UnitedHealth and CVS Health on May 15, the periodic transaction reports he filed with the House clerk in June show. Taken together, those four companies oversee roughly half of all Medicaid managed care organizations, according to the KFF, a health policy research organization.
Mercer’s National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans shows that the cost of employer-based health insurance is rising faster than the rate of inflation:
Health benefit cost is rising much faster than inflation and wage growth. In 2025, average cost per employee rose 6.0% and an even higher increase is projected for 2026 – 6.7%, the highest in 15 years. A jump in spending on prescription drugs, due in part to growing utilization of costly GLP-1 medications, was a key cost driver in 2025.
On Nov. 17, the Maryland Prescription Drug Affordability Board determined that Trulicity and Ozempic are likely unaffordable for Marylanders, adding them to two other drugs (Jardiance and Farxiga) being considered for upper payment limits. It also ordered staff to draw up language to set a limit on how much state and local governments are willing to pay for Farxiga and Jardiance. The Board will need to officially approve the upper payment limit in a future board meeting.
Health insurance industry whistle-blower Wendell Potter would like to remind you that “rising ‘health care costs’ are really rising health insurance profits.”
Want to file a lawsuit related to COVID-19 vaccines? Your chances of winning these days are much better and both Children’s Health Defense and America’s Frontline Doctors, two conspiracy-peddling faux-science/physicians groups, will likely be there to help you.
Reuters reports that “Kenvue could face the revival of more than 500 private lawsuits alleging its Tylenol painkiller causes autism, after a U.S. appeals court panel on Monday questioned whether they were dismissed because a trial judge improperly excluded evidence.”