Bulwark Of Courts Blocks Trump’s Health Care Policy Agenda

The Washington Post: Judge Blocks Trump Order On Transgender Youth Health Care
A federal judge on Thursday blocked executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that target transgender people and their health care, giving temporary relief to LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, who braced for legal battles to continue. At least one health system — the hospital affiliated with the University of Virginia — said it would resume providing services that had been paused under the order. (Portnoy and Rizzo, 2/13)

The New York Times: Judge Extends Halt On Trump Plan To Dismantle U.S.A.I.D.
A federal judge on Thursday moved to extend by one week a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from carrying out plans that would all but dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. The order, which Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he would file later Thursday, continues to stall a directive that would put a quarter of its employees on administrative leave while forcing those posted overseas to return to the United States within 30 days. (Demirjian and Sullivan, 2/13)

AP: Fourth Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order
A federal judge in Boston on Thursday blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump that would end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally, becoming the fourth judge to do so. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin came three days after U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante in New Hampshire blocked the executive order and follows similar rulings in Seattle and Maryland. (Casey and Catalini, 2/14)

More on the federal freeze —

The New York Times: How Trump’s Medical Research Cuts Would Hit Colleges And Hospitals In Every State
A proposal by the Trump administration to reduce the size of grants for institutions conducting medical research would have far-reaching effects, and not just for elite universities and the coastal states where many are located. Also at risk could be grants from the National Institutes of Health to numerous hospitals that conduct clinical research on major diseases, and to state universities across the country. North Carolina, Missouri and Pennsylvania could face disproportionate losses, because of the concentration of medical research in those states. (Badger, Bhatia, Cabreros, Murray, Paris, Sanger-Katz and Singer, 2/13)

AP: Federal Funding Freeze Disrupts Rural Organizations Supporting Foster Youth, Job Growth
After surviving teen homelessness and domestic violence in West Virginia, 23-year-old Ireland Daugherty was finally feeling stable. ... Ashley Cain, 36, was celebrating four years of sobriety and working with a nonprofit that trains workers to remediate long-abandoned factories and coal mines into sites for manufacturing and solar projects. Federally funded programs provided both women with a social safety net and employment in one of the nation’s poorest states, where nonprofits play a vital role in providing basic services like health care, education and economic development. (Willingham, 2/14)

Bloomberg: LGBTQ Web Pages Deleted From Federal Government Web Sites, Report Says
If a teacher wanted to find guidance in early January on how to support LGBTQ students, they could have accessed a government website for resources. That web page no longer exists. It’s one of more than 350 government web pages related to the LGBTQ community that have been deleted from federal government websites, according to a report published Thursday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy group. (Butler, 2/13)

Stat: Examining Options For U.S. Researchers Seeking Opportunities Abroad
The Trump administration’s early moves to restrict scientific studies and limit payments to universities and other institutions have stoked concerns that some academics may look to leave the U.S. The question is, where will they go? (Joseph, 2/14)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Courts Try To Curb Health Cuts
Some of the Trump administration’s dramatic funding and policy shifts are facing major pushback for the first time — not from Congress, but from the courts. Federal judges around the country are attempting to pump the brakes on efforts to freeze government spending, shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, eliminate access to health-related webpages and datasets, and limit grant funding provided by the National Institutes of Health. (Rovner, 2/13)

Talk to us —

We’d like to speak with personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies about what’s happening within the federal health bureaucracy. Please share your story here or contact reporter Arthur Allen directly by email or Signal at ArthurA@kff.org or 202-365-6116.

On USAID —

CIDRAP: USAID Funding Freeze Disrupts Global Tuberculosis Control Efforts
The Trump administration's freeze on foreign aid delivered through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the subsequent shutdown and dismantling of the agency altogether, has sent shockwaves throughout the community of people working on tuberculosis (TB) treatment, diagnosis, and prevention. The 90-day funding freeze, which sources tell CIDRAP News came with no warning or ability to make contingency plans, has left no parts of the global TB control community untouched. (Dall, 2/13)

AP: Trump's Foreign Aid Freeze Forces Health Clinics In A Vulnerable Region Of Syria To Close
In the town of Sarmada in northern Syria, Dr. Mohammad Fares unlocked a clinic that once bustled with patients. Now it’s empty, and shelves of medicine reduced to a few boxes of bandages and expired drugs. This is what it looks like after the Trump administration halted U.S. foreign assistance last month. The U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, issued stop-work orders during a 90-day review for what the administration has alleged is wasteful spending. (Badendieck and Alsayed, 2/14)