October 1, 2025 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | October 1, 2025
The Committee in the News
On Sept. 23, Committee Executive Director Rob Davidson appeared on the Jim Acosta Show to talk about Trump linking acetaminophen to autism.
On Monday, Committee Member Dr. Chris Ford joined Sen. Chris Murphy for an Instagram Live session to discuss how cuts to Medicaid and health care will devastate millions of American patients.
On Sept. 22, Committee Advocate Dr. Wes Wallace at a press conference hosted by Health Action NC encouraging lawmakers to pass a budget that fully funds Medicaid in North Carolina. The event was covered by WUNC.
On Sept. 23, Committee Member Dr. Christopher Hyson spoke at a press conference hosted by Empire State Voices, 1199SEIU/Healthcare Education Project, New York State Nurses Association, and Citizen Action outside of one of the NY-21 hospitals that is at risk due to Medicaid cuts. The event was held to hold Rep. Stefanik accountable for her vote and to call on her to extend the ACA tax credits. You can watch Dr. Hyson’s comments HERE.
Also on Sept. 23, Committee Advocate Dr. Malcolm Smith spoke at a rally hosted by Affordable VA and SEIU VA outside of Rep. Kiggans’ (VA-2) office in Virginia Beach to hold her accountable for her vote and calling on her to extend the ACA tax credits.
Committee Member Dr. Laura Berghahn spoke at Americans for Good Policy’s Sept. 26 roundtable on World Contraception Day. Dr. Berghahn spoke alongside state Rep. Lisa Subeck and advocates about the Wisconsin Right to Contraception Act, which Rep. Subeck and state Sen. Dianne Hesselbein had reintroduced the same day.
Government Shutdown News
A meeting between Trump and Democratic Congressional leaders on Monday did not result in any movement on the issue and Democrats remained firm that the ACA subsidies must be renewed to get their votes for the funding bill. If they fail to renew the subsidies by the end of 2025, an estimated 4 million Americans will lose their health care insurance coverage. For those on marketplace insurance plans, their premiums will spike as much as 75%.
On Tuesday night, the government officially shut down as Republicans chose that route over protecting ACA subsidies.
Related from The New York Times: Why Obamacare Bills May Double Next Year
Related from The Hill: Health insurance marketplace rate hikes top 20 percent in most states, Cantwell says
Related from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Report: Georgia health sector to lose $3.7B in 2026 as ACA subsidies end
Related from Mountain State Spotlight: 60,000 West Virginians risk losing affordable health care as Congress stalls on subsidies
KFF has a calculator for determining how much ACA marketplace plans will cost if Republicans refuse to renew the premium subsidies.
Trump Administration News
Rolling Stone (via Yahoo! News): ‘It’s Always Somehow Our Fault’: Moms of Autistic Kids Push Back on Trump’s Tylenol Claims
KFF Health News: Trump Claims ‘No Downside’ to Avoiding Tylenol During Pregnancy. He’s Wrong.:
“Untreated fever, particularly in the first trimester, increases the risk of miscarriage, birth defects, and premature birth, and untreated pain can lead to maternal depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure,” [the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine] said.
Research on these risks goes back more than a decade: A 2014 Pediatrics review of available evidence on fevers during pregnancy found “substantial evidence” that maternal fever might negatively affect fetal health in the short and long term, including increasing the risks of neural tube defects, congenital heart defects, and oral clefts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also says that fever during pregnancy has been linked to adverse outcomes including birth defects.
Trump doubled down last Friday saying parents should not give acetaminophen to their children “for any reason”.
Following Trump’s initial remarks about Tylenol, Dr. Oz, JD Vance, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune all tempered the message saying pregnant people should consult with their physicians about using acetaminophen.
You can read the letter the FDA sent to physicians regarding the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy HERE.
CNN Health: Acetaminophen use during pregnancy not linked to autism, our study of 2.5 million children shows
By the way, it’s not just people with autism, their advocates, and the medical community who are angry about Trump’s statements linking Tylenol to autism. Anti-vaxxers who have spent years trying to convince us that vaccines are the cause of autism are pissed off, too.
The New York Times: Trump and Pfizer Announce Deal to Lower Some Medicaid Drug Prices:
President Trump and the drugmaker Pfizer announced a deal on Tuesday in which the drug company would sell many of its products to Medicaid at the much lower prices it offers to European countries.
Under the agreement, Pfizer would also release new drugs at prices that similarly align with those in other wealthy nations.
In an Oval Office news conference, the Trump administration’s top health officials also announced the launch of a new website, TrumpRx, where Americans will be able to buy drugs directly from manufacturers.
The Hill reports that Rep. Haley Stevens has introduced the “Stop RFK’s BS Act”. Related: Haley Stevens files articles of impeachment against RFK Jr.
The New York Times: F.D.A.’s Approval of a Drug for Autism Upends Review Process
RFK Jr. is reportedly considering adding symptoms of autism to the list of side effects that could warrant payment under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The move could end up bankrupting the program.
CNN Health: In doctors’ offices, the consequences of Trump’s comments on Tylenol and vaccines are immediately clear:
Hours after President Donald Trump’s announcement linking acetaminophen use during pregnancy with autism in children, a mother sat in my office, sobbing. Had she caused her child’s autism by treating the debilitating headaches she suffered while she was pregnant?
In the room next door, a mother of three who had never before questioned vaccines asked that we space out her youngest’s shots to one per visit. She had watched Trump say this may be better, she said, and she just couldn’t forgive herself if something happened to her child later.
And down the hall, yet another mother reluctantly agreed to vaccinate her child at the recommended time. She would not be agreeing to all vaccines if it weren’t for the school requirement in New York City, she said.
Last week, RFK Jr. announced a re-review of mifepristone, one of the two medications used as a safe and effective drug in medication abortions as well as miscarriage care. Mifepristone was used in 63% of US abortions in 2023 and 25% of medication abortions are provided via telehealth.
It’s worth noting that Sunday was the 25th anniversary of the FDA approving mifepristone and that they conducted a review of mifepristone less than three years ago.
The Hill: 57 percent not confident in medical information cited by RFK Jr.: Survey
Last week in this newsletter, you learned that Georgia had spent twice as much on administrative costs related to their Medicaid work requirement than on actual health care. This week, the Trump administration re-approved their pilot program that was slated to end yesterday.
Trump is threatening tariffs on pharmaceuticals but it looks like, at least for now, it will be limited to branded products which may face 100% tariffs if manufacturers haven’t committed to building new U.S. facilities by today.
Trump’s solution to increasing prescription drug costs? Make people in other countries pay more for their medicines, enriching Big Pharma:
Big drug companies so far are responding to President Trump’s demand they commit to his “most favored nation” pricing policy by raising prices abroad without cutting them in the U.S. [...]
Trump might view higher prices abroad as a win, “but that might not feel like a win for patients who still can’t afford their drugs here,” said Rachel Sachs, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who was a Health and Human Services official in the Biden administration.
POLITICO: Trump taps Ben Carson to help carry out MAHA agenda
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
POLITICO: California doctors can now prescribe abortion anonymously
[NOTE: Doctors aren’t actually prescribing abortion pills “anonymously.” The law simply says identifying information does not have to appear on the packaging and the information could only be seen through a subpoena.]
After being forced to reword the description of his deceptive Missouri abortion ban ballot proposal, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins submitted a second version. Once again, it fails to mention that the proposal would ban abortion. Notably, the proposal is labeled “Amendment 3”, the same label as the referendum voters passed just last year to enshrine abortion rights in Missouri’s constitution.
Cleveland.com: Ohio GOP Lawmakers Defy Voters with New Abortion Bill Despite Constitutional Amendment
Jessica Valenti at ABORTION, EVERY DAY has a full run-down on how RFK Jr.’s announcement that HHS will conduct its own study of mifepristone is simply cover for anti-abortion zealots to end the use of one of the most common forms of abortion in America today. Following the announcement, she writes, “It hit me that the FDA and HHS—once again coordinating with anti-abortion groups—might try to use ‘data’ from anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, or mifepristone horror stories from women coached by the anti-abortion movement.”
In related news, three red states want to join a Missouri lawsuit involving mifepristone.
Valenti also reports that Louisiana’s Attorney General Liz Murrill has filed lawsuits against two physicians who live in states with shield laws and have shipped abortion pills into her state. She says Murrill is leading the charge to equate abortion pills with ‘coercion’ and abuse and “racing to force a case challenging shield laws up to the Supreme Court.”
Alabama will be one of the next states to take on mail-order abortion pills, it appears.
A California woman is suing a Catholic hospital system, Dignity Health, that denied her emergency abortion treatment for her life-threatening miscarriages, not once but TWICE.
Other Health Care News
The CT Mirror reports that health insurance giants are using a new method to increase their profit margins: downcoding claims for office visits billed at the highest reimbursement rates.
The Hill reports that drug makers are still trying to beat back the Medicare drug pricing negotiations program created by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.
NBC News: More kids are severely ill or dying from the flu, CDC reports
Chicago Tribune: Illinois issues its own COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, breaking with federal government
MedPage Today: ‘We Are Exhausted, Frustrated, and Sad’: Docs Vent During Meeting With Senator
Navigator has released Part 2 of its polling on the so-called “MAHA” agenda and found that “there is overwhelming consensus on health and wellness policies: insurance coverage, healthier foods, investment in medical research, and removing toxins from our environment.” They also found that “anti-vaccine sentiment remains fringe, especially around childhood vaccines, but divisions open up around the coronavirus vaccine.” See their findings HERE.