First Edition: Friday, Feb. 28, 2025

KFF Health News: A Runner Was Hit By A Car, Then By A Surprise Ambulance Bill
Jagdish Whitten was on a run in July 2023 when a car hit him as he crossed a busy San Francisco street. Whitten, then 25, described doing “a little flip” over the vehicle and landing in the street before getting himself to the curb. Concerned onlookers called an ambulance. But Whitten instead had friends pick him up and take him to a nearby hospital, the Helen Diller Medical Center, operated by the University of California-San Francisco. “I knew that ambulances were expensive, and I didn’t think I was going to die,” he said. (West, 2/28)

KFF Health News: Future Of Cancer Coverage For Women Federal Firefighters Uncertain Under Trump
It took nearly three years to win presumptive workers’ compensation coverage for breast, cervical, and other cancers that firefighters who work for federal agencies may develop because of hazardous exposures on the job. Now, just weeks after the Labor Department added coverage for those illnesses, firefighters worry the gains may be in jeopardy after the Trump administration deleted information about the expansion of coverage for cancers that mostly affect women and transgender firefighters from a federal webpage and ducked questions about whether it will uphold the policy change made in the waning days of the Biden administration. (Mohr, 2/28)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: House GOP Plan Targets Medicaid
The House passed a budget plan that likely would result in major cuts to the Medicaid program. But the plan now faces a battle in the Senate, where even Republicans seem reluctant to dramatically reduce a health program that covers roughly 1 in 5 Americans. Meanwhile, federal judges and the Trump administration continue to differ over whether the administration has the authority to unilaterally cancel programs approved and funded by Congress and to fire federal workers. (Rovner, 2/27)

CNN: RFK Jr. Said Measles Outbreaks Are ‘Not Unusual’ In The US. Doctors Say He’s Wrong
When Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy answered questions during the first cabinet meeting of the new Trump administration, he incorrectly described the number of people who died in a West Texas measles outbreak and the reason people were hospitalized. Measles outbreaks are “not unusual,” Kennedy said. Doctors say that was wrong, too. (Mukherjee, 2/27)

Stat: On Texas Measles Outbreak, Trump Administration's Messaging Is Atypical
In 2019, amid a measles outbreak in New York, federal health officials uniformly preached the power of immunizations. “Measles is preventable and the way to end this outbreak is to ensure that all children and adults who can get vaccinated, do get vaccinated,” said Robert Redfield, then the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health Secretary Alex Azar echoed that, saying “the suffering we are seeing today is completely avoidable.” President Trump, then in his first term, also implored people to get immunized. “They have to get the shot,” he said. “The vaccinations are so important.” The new Trump administration, at least so far, is sending a different message. (Joseph, 2/27)

ABC News: Measles Cases Reported In New Jersey, Kentucky Amid Ongoing Outbreak In Texas
More measles cases are being confirmed across the United States as health officials work to treat patients in an ongoing outbreak in Texas. The Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH) and the Franklin County Health Department announced on Wednesday a confirmed case of measles in an adult resident, the first in the state in two years. The departments said the resident recently traveled internationally to an area where measles is spreading. (Kekatos, 2/28)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Leaders Quiet Amid Measles Crisis 
Texas is facing its worst measles outbreak in decades, as cases have jumped from two to 124 in just one month. A child is dead, 18 more are hospitalized and the worst is likely still ahead, public health experts say, as Texas’ decreasing vaccination rates leave swaths of the state exposed to the most contagious virus humans currently face. State and local health officials are setting up vaccine clinics and encouraging people to get the shot, which is more than 97% effective at warding off measles. But neither Gov. Greg Abbott nor lawmakers from the hardest hit areas have addressed the outbreak publicly in press conferences, social media posts or public calls for people to consider getting vaccinated. (Klibanoff, 2/28)

NBC News: Could Flu Shot Supply Fall Short This Year? FDA's Canceled Meeting Sparks Worries
The Food and Drug Administration’s abrupt decision on Wednesday to cancel next month’s vaccine advisory committee meeting — where experts recommend the strains for next season’s flu shot — is raising concerns about whether the U.S. will have enough of the vaccine for the next flu season. Drugmakers already face a tight deadline each year to produce enough doses for distribution in the fall. (Lovelace Jr., 2/27)

CIDRAP: CDC: 13% Of Kids Who Died From Flu This Year Had Brain Damage
Today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that 13% of children who have died from seasonal flu this season had influenza-associated encephalopathy or encephalitis (IAE), a severe neurologic complication. (Soucheray, 2/27)

The Guardian: Formerly Anti-Vax Parents On How They Changed Their Minds: ‘I Really Made A Mistake’
When Nikki Hill Johnson’s first daughter was born in 2012, Johnson didn’t hesitate to take her to the doctor for routine infant immunizations. Soon after the birth, South Carolina-based Johnson, now 42, joined a fitness- and nutrition-oriented multilevel marketing company (MLM). There, she encountered a colleague who made her question the safety of vaccines. (Matei, 2/27)

Stat: Government Officials To Miss HIMSS Health Information Conference
Federal health officials due to speak at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting in Las Vegas next week have dropped out of the key health tech industry conference. (Trang, 2/27)

The New York Times: U.S. Terminates Funding For Polio, H.I.V., Malaria And Nutrition Programs Around The World
Starting Wednesday afternoon, a wave of emails went out from the State Department in Washington around the world, landing in inboxes for refugee camps, tuberculosis clinics, polio vaccination projects and thousands of other organizations that received crucial funding for lifesaving work. “This award is being terminated for convenience and the interest of the U.S. government,” they began. (Nolen, 2/27)

The Washington Post: USAID Watchdog, Fearing Trump’s Wrath, Keeps Critical Reports Under Wraps
The watchdog for the U.S. Agency for International Development has yet to release two critical reports on the consequences of President Donald Trump’s funding freeze on crucial services in Africa and the Middle East, amid fears of retaliation from the White House, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post. (Rein and Hudson, 2/27)

Politico: USAID Cuts Expected To Devastate Global Health 
The Trump administration has decided that hundreds of programs aimed at helping people in the world’s poorest countries stay alive are no longer in the national interest. The sweeping cuts in foreign aid announced Wednesday will slash HIV treatment, prevention and research, health services to treat malaria, and care for new mothers and their babies, among other lifesaving programs, say global health and humanitarian groups whose contracts were cut. It will also halt basic health services for people displaced by conflict, such as those in Sudan or Gaza. (Paun and Lippman, 2/27)

The Hill: Wyden, Sanders: Federal Layoffs Threaten Organ Transplant System Modernization
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are expressing concern to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that recent layoffs at U.S. health agencies are threatening the modernization of the organ transplant system. The pair of lawmakers asked Kennedy in a Wednesday letter to disclose which staff at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), tasked with implementing improvements to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), were impacted by layoffs. (Timotija, 2/27)

Politico: DOGE Is Now Dramatically Raising The Potential For A Government Shutdown
Senior Republicans are seriously exploring how to include cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in an upcoming government funding bill — a move that would skyrocket tensions with Democrats and drastically raise the potential for a government shutdown. Top GOP leaders and President Donald Trump’s team have been discussing the idea, which is far from finalized, according to three people who were granted anonymity to discuss the conversations. (Hill and Bade, 2/27)

Politico: Republicans Say States Are Pulling A Fast One On Medicaid 
Republicans in Congress see a way around the $880 billion budget shortfall they need to fill to extend President Donald Trump’s tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year. States aren’t going to like it. To qualify for federal Medicaid dollars, states must also kick in their own matching funds. GOP lawmakers want to stop states from taxing insurers and health care providers to raise that money, a maneuver that would leave states with a $612 billion hole in their budgets over the next decade. (King, 2/27)

Roll Call: Medicaid Work Rules Have Increased Coverage Loss, Not Employment 
House Republicans are coalescing around work requirements in Medicaid as part of the massive budget blueprint the House adopted Tuesday. But there’s one problem: They don’t increase employment, experts say. They do, however, result in people losing coverage. (Hellmann and Raman, 2/27)

Becker's Hospital Review: Where Medicaid Cuts Would Hit Hardest Through 2034: A State By State Breakdown
Looming federal Medicaid cuts could shift a massive financial burden to state governments, potentially requiring them to make up between $700 billion and $1.1 trillion in funding over the next decade, according to a new analysis from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. On Feb. 25, House Republicans passed a budget resolution that orders the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, to find $880 billion in savings from fiscal years 2025 through 2034. (Emerson, 2/27)

AP: Montana Legislature Green Lights Medicaid Expansion As Congress Considers Program Cuts
A Republican proposal to leave current levels of Medicaid coverage in place in Montana is headed to the governor’s desk as Congress considers billions of dollars in cuts to the low-income health program. The Montana Senate gave final legislative approval to the bill in a 30-20 vote Thursday. Expanded coverage had been set to expire on the safety net program that insures more than 76,000 Montana residents. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte has voiced support for continuing coverage, but has not commented on the specific proposal. (Schoenbaum, 2/27)

North Carolina Health News: Lawmakers Propose Higher Medicaid Reimbursement Rates For NC Dentists 
When North Carolina started enrolling more people in the expanded Medicaid program almost 15 months ago, hundreds of thousands of low-income people became eligible for an array of dental services. But that didn’t mean dentists across the state started welcoming the new Medicaid beneficiaries onto their chairs. Nearly 60 percent of North Carolina dentists don’t accept Medicaid patients, and many of those who do aren’t taking on new patients with the government subsidized insurance plan. (Blythe, 2/28)

The Washington Post: Pentagon Says Transgender Troops Will Be Removed From U.S. Military
Openly transgender service members will be disqualified from serving in the U.S. military and will soon be removed from the ranks, according to a Pentagon memo that marks a significant shift from previous Defense Department policy that prohibited discrimination based on gender identity. The memo was made public Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ rights groups against an executive order signed last month by President Donald Trump, which stated that the “medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria” are “inconsistent” with the high standards expected of U.S. troops. (Timsit, 2/27)

The New York Times: Number Of Trans Troops Far Lower Than Estimated, Pentagon Figures Show
The military released on Thursday the number of transgender troops currently serving in the armed forces, revealing a population much smaller than recent estimates. Currently, according to those figures, 4,240 people in the military — about 0.2 percent of the 2 million people in uniform — have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. That diagnosis is the best way the military has of tracking the number of trans troops in the force. Previous estimates usually put the number of trans troops at about 15,000. (Philipps, 2/27)

ABC News: Major Medical Groups Push Back Against Trump Administration's Definition Of Sex And Gender
Some major medical associations are pushing back against the Department of Health and Human Services' updated definitions of biological sex in federal policy in the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order. ... "There is extensive scientific research that supports the complexity of sex and gender beyond binary classifications," American Psychological Association CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr., Ph.D., told ABC News in a statement. "The new restrictive definition of sex ignores decades of science, increasing harm to youth and families, while undermining critical mental health outcomes." (Vaez, 2/27)

The New York Times: Iowa Lawmakers Pass Bill To Eliminate Transgender Civil Rights Protections
Iowa lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday that would end state civil rights protections for transgender people. Advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. rights said that Iowa would become the first state to remove such broad and explicit protections for trans people if the Republican-backed measure was signed into law. The bill, which now goes to the desk of the Republican governor, passed 18 years after the state, then led by Democrats, enshrined those discrimination protections into Iowa code. (Smith, 2/27)

Bloomberg: HHS Lays Off Lawyers Who Were Defending Medicare Drug Price Cuts
At least three government lawyers working on defending a major Biden-era drug pricing law were laid off in mass cuts across the agency this month, according to a source familiar with the terminations. The attorneys were doing legal work implementing and defending the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that allows Medicare to directly negotiate down the price of drugs for the first time. Medicare is facing an onslaught of lawsuits filed by pharmaceutical companies and their allies arguing the new law is unconstitutional. (Cohrs Zhang and Tozzi, 2/27)

Stat: Trump Is Looking For Drugmakers To Come Through For Him. They Have A Wish List For Him, Too
After announcing plans to build four manufacturing sites in the U.S. on Wednesday, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks skillfully demurred when asked if the move might forestall tariffs that President Trump has threatened to levy on the pharmaceutical industry. “There’s no discussion about that yet,” he told CNBC. “… But it makes no sense to punish companies that are pursuing this agenda.” (Silverman, 2/27)

Stat: Pfizer Revises Its DEI Webpage To Emphasize Importance Of ‘Merit’
Pfizer on Thursday made significant changes to its diversity, equity, and inclusion webpage, as companies across different industries seek to reposition their policies and messaging amid President Trump’s dismantling of DEI initiatives. The pharma company now emphasizes merit throughout its webpage. (Chen and Parker, 2/27)

NPR: Trump Says New Tariffs Will Cut Fentanyl Deaths, But Overdoses Are Already Plummeting
President Donald Trump confirmed Thursday that new 25 percent tariffs will go into effect March 4th against two of the U.S.'s largest trading partners. Trump also threatened to add an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods and services on the same date. Writing on Truth Social, Trump once again cited street drugs "pouring into our country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels" as a primary reason for the policy. (Mann, 2/27)

Fierce Healthcare: Private Equity Buyout Could Lead To Walgreens Breakup
A rumored private equity buyout of Walgreens could lead the company to be split up, according to media reports. People familiar with the discussions told the Financial Times that a buyout from Sycamore Partners, a firm that has a historical interest in retailers, would "set the stage for a three-way break-up." Sycamore is looking to split the three main divisions at Walgreens into their own segments, including their own capital structures. (Minemyer, 2/27)

Becker's Hospital Review: 500+ Hospitals Drop Mental Health Questions For Physicians
More than 500 hospitals nationwide have removed questions on physicians' mental health from licensing or credentialing applications, according to the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation. The changes are part of the Wellbeing First Champion Challenge program, which encourages healthcare organizations to remove intrusive mental health questions from such forms, as physicians have often cited these questions as a barrier to seeking necessary care. The program is part of All In: WellBeing First for Healthcare, a coalition of healthcare organizations led by the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation. (Bean, 2/27)

Modern Healthcare: Why Hospital Layoffs, Cuts Are Happening Despite Labor Shortage
A wave of health systems are laying off hundreds of non-clinical employees as they strive for more efficient operations — and a way to shore up lagging financial performance. More than a dozen systems, including Mass General Brigham and Cleveland Clinic, announced layoffs in management, administrative and other roles over the past two months. The layoffs signal another industrywide push to achieve sustainable margins in a post-pandemic environment, while also avoiding negative effects on patient care. (Hudson, 2/27)

Modern Healthcare: Medical Device Recalls Hit 4-Year High In 2024
Medical device recall events in 2024 reached their highest level since 2020 and more than 10% of them involved the most serious type of recall. There were 1,048 medical device recalls in 2024, an increase of almost 25% from the 840 recalls that occurred in 2023, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Class I recalls, the most serious type, accounted for 10.9% of recalls. (Dubinsky, 2/27)

Politico: New York City Health Clinic Now Asking For Proof Of Citizenship, Citing Trump 
A prominent community health center with a long legacy of treating asylum-seekers is now requesting patients’ proof of citizenship, in an apparent response to the Trump administration’s broad threats to federal funding and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The Floating Hospital in Queens is asking patients to show their Social Security cards or other proof of citizenship, citing an unspecified executive order by the Trump administration, according to an audio recording reviewed by POLITICO and two city lawmakers who were briefed on the matter and granted anonymity to speak candidly about a sensitive issue. (Kaufman, 2/27)

Wyoming Public Radio: The Future Of Procedural Abortion In Wyoming Is In Doubt After Gordon Signs Bill 
A bill requiring clinics providing procedural abortions to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers was signed by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon on Feb. 27. It goes into effect immediately. HB 42 will likely cause the closure of the only such clinic in the state, Wellspring Health Access in Casper. (Clements, 2/27)

Military.Com: Retired 4-Star Officers Join Suit To House Homeless Veterans At California VA Medical Center
Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy SEAL, and two other retired four-star officers have joined a lawsuit to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to build more housing for homeless veterans on the grounds of the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. The failure of the VA to address the housing needs of veterans poses "a direct threat to national security" in the long term, according to the brief filed by McRaven, who as head of Joint Special Operations Command oversaw the 2011 raid by SEAL Team 6 that killed Osama Bin Laden. (Sisk, 2/27)

Axios: HPV Vaccine Has Huge Impact On Cervical Cancer Prevention, CDC Study Suggests
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is having a huge impact on cervical cancer prevention among young women, a U.S. government report published Thursday suggests. The CDC report showing rates of precancerous lesions among women aged 20-24 screened for cervical cancer from 2008-2022 fell by about 80% comes days after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who once called the HPV vaccine "dangerous and defective," was confirmed as health and human services secretary. (Falconer, 2/27)

Fortune Well: MRNA Vaccine For Pancreatic Cancer Shows Promise In Early Trial
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest types of cancer, with fewer than 13% of people diagnosed with it surviving for more than five years. It kills 88% of its patients, and its recurrence rate, after surgery, is nearly 90% within seven to nine months. U.S. mortality rates, meanwhile, are on the upswing. But promising results from a small clinical trial for an mRNA pancreatic cancer vaccine are fueling new rays of hope. (Greenfield, 2/27)