Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump Admin Reclassifies Medical Marijuana As A Less-Dangerous Drug
AP: Trump Reclassifies State-Licensed Medical Marijuana In Historic Shift
President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government. The order signed by Todd Blanche does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under U.S. law. But it does change the way it’s regulated. (Durkin Richer and Johnson, 4/23)
More updates on the Trump administration —
Stat: New CDC Official Used To Work For Multinational Tobacco Firm
A former tobacco industry executive has been appointed to senior leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alarming public health advocates and critics of industry influence on government. (Todd, 4/22)
The New York Times: Pace Of N.I.H. Funding Slows Further In Trump’s Second Year
Spending on new medical research by the National Institutes of Health has fallen roughly $1 billion behind the pace of years past, delaying thousands of scientific projects and raising concerns within the agency that it may struggle to pay out the money it was allotted by Congress. Instead of canceling grants en masse, as the N.I.H. did in the first year of this Trump presidency, it is now vetting them before approval with a “computational text analysis tool” that scans for terms including “racism,” “gender” and “vaccination refusal,” according to documents obtained by The New York Times. (Mueller and Hwang, 4/22)
Stat: Federal Test Of AI Prior Authorization Is Delaying Care For Seniors, Report Says
Washington state hospitals say their Medicare patients are waiting two to four times longer in some cases for procedures that are now subject to prior authorization under a new Medicare program. The report from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is among the first to document alleged patient harm stemming from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ new Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction, or WISeR, Model. Cantwell is one of several Democratic members of Congress who have been urging CMS to scrap the program, which launched Jan. 1. (Bannow, 4/22)
Also —
Politico: GOP Health Care Policies Have Set The Swamp On Fire
The biggest players in the health care industry are pouring record sums into K Street, Washington’s lobbying corridor, as the Trump administration intensifies scrutiny of their business practices ahead of the midterms. Newly filed lobbying disclosures reveal that some of the largest health care trade groups in Washington have continued to budget historic sums for lobbying. AHIP, which represents health insurers, shelled out $5.3 million in the first three months of 2026, its highest tally for any quarter on record. (Chu, 4/22)
The 19th: Senate Democrats Struggle To Find Footing On Trans Rights Messaging
The Senate has been deadlocked on President Donald Trump’s priority voting bill, the SAVE America Act, for months. The measure hasn’t seen much floor action; the latest was a March amendment vote stemming from the president’s suggested change to prohibit transgender athletes from participating in girls’ or women’s sports. (Martinez, 4/22)
On the high cost of prescription drugs —
Bloomberg: Trump’s Plan To Cut US Drug Prices Backfires For Europe
Frank Hennemann sometimes coughs 400 times a day. His airways are damaged by a lung condition called bronchiectasis, which he describes as feeling like two trucks are parking on his chest. After decades of research, there’s finally a medicine to alleviate his symptoms, but Hennemann lives in Germany. One reason he can’t get it there is Donald Trump. The company behind the new treatment, Insmed Inc., won’t launch in Europe until it can better understand the financial implications of a Trump directive that could upend the math drugmakers rely on to recoup their research investments. (Smith, Furlong, and Kinzelmann, 4/23)
Modern Healthcare: Why Smaller PBMs Fear The Labor Department's Transparency Rule
A regulation billed as balancing the scales between the largest pharmacy benefit managers and the rest of the industry could have harmful consequences, smaller PBMs warn. The Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration proposed new transparency requirements for PBMs and benefits consulting firms in January. If finalized without changes, the rule would take effect in July. (Tong, 4/22)
Modern Healthcare: How A Single Word Could Determine The Future Of 340B
A novel legal argument could upend the 340B Drug Pricing Program. The drugmaker AbbVie sued the Health Resources and Services Administration this month alleging the agency’s 30-year-old regulatory definition of “patient” has enabled the program to grow beyond its original intent and given too many hospitals and other safety-net providers access to deeply discounted prescription medicines. (Early, 4/22)
Stat: Discount Telehealth Visits Raise Concerns About Pharma Company Ties
The little pink pill recently got a retail boost. Addyi, a drug that treats low libido in premenopausal women, has been on the market for more than a decade after a controversial approval. But in December the Food and Drug Administration expanded its use, approving the daily drug for all women under 65. (Palmer, 4/23)
