Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump Nixes Pentagon Plan To Slash Billions From Military Health Care
Politico: Trump Rejects Pentagon's Proposed Cuts To Military Health Care
President Donald Trump on Monday said he had rejected a proposal working its way through the Pentagon to cut military health services by $2.2 billion as part of an overall spending review. "A proposal by Pentagon officials to slash Military Healthcare by $2.2 billion dollars has been firmly and totally rejected by me," Trump tweeted on Monday night. "We will do nothing to hurt our great Military professionals & heroes as long as I am your President. Thank you!" (Diamond and Seligman, 8/17)
The Hill: Trump Says He Has Rejected Pentagon Proposal To Slash Military Health Care
The Pentagon did not immediately return a request for comment. Under the proposal, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness would need to save $2.2 billion in military health, a number officials settled on after months of discussions during the cost-cutting review, a defense official told Politico. (Coleman, 8/17)
In other White House news —
Politico: Former DHS Official: Trump Wanted To Withhold California Wildfire Money For Political Reasons
President Donald Trump wanted to shut off emergency relief for California amid devastating wildfires because it was a blue state, and he tried to deliberately separate families to deter immigration, according to a scathing account given by a former administration official on Monday. In a new ad by the group Republican Voters Against Trump, Miles Taylor, former chief of staff to former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, said Trump was “actively doing damage to our security,” recounting a number of episodes that he said revealed Trump’s inability to lead. (Choi, 8/17)
CNN: Birx Says Data Collected From Hospitals During Coronavirus Pandemic Has Been "Extraordinarily Important"
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Monday that the coronavirus data collected from hospitals has been "extraordinarily important." "We have an interim system -- it is solely an interim system -- to get daily reports from hospitals of new admissions," Birx said in a roundtable discussion hosted by Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson. "I think that has been critically important to support the states." (Mascarenhas, 8/17)
