House Republicans will leave for the weekend still in a bind on how to move forward with a reconciliation bill acceptable to swing state lawmakers wary of harming constituents -- and providers who rely on Medicaid -- and also to hard line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus who are now saying they want to use the fast-track budget process as a way to fundamentally restructure Medicaid.
More than 1 million exchange enrollees will need to find new coverage for plan year 2026 now that CVS Health has announced that Aetna will exit the marketplaces – and brokers are raising concerns about potential disruptions.
As a first step toward an upcoming effort to tighten scrutiny over grants, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced Thursday (May 1) it will prohibit all subawards to foreign institutions, citing concerns over transparency and national security.
The Trump administration wants to eliminate education and outreach directed at those not directly involved in Medicare drug price negotiations as part of a broader fiscal 2026 budget request that proposes slashing over half a billion dollars from myriad CMS programs and operations the administration says have been carrying out “non-statutory, wasteful, and woke activities.”
The Trump administration is urging congressional Republicans to include a “most favored nation” (MFN) policy in their domestic policy package that would tie Medicaid drug payments to the lowest prices paid in other wealthy countries, a White House official confirmed to Inside Health Policy.
A Yale undergraduate student with ties to influential venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and a longtime Palantir employee have filled HHS’ chief artificial intelligence (CAIO) and chief technology officer (CTO) roles respectively, according to media outlets and an Inside Health Policy review of HHS’ public staff directory.
The Trump administration is proposing to cut funding for the nation’s public health research agencies by over 40%, calling for a combined $21.6 billion reduction in funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its fiscal 2026 budget request unveiled Friday (May 2).
A wide-ranging group of biotechnology industry stakeholders have asked Senate health committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to pressure FDA on how its layoffs will impact medical product companies, saying in a letter to Cassidy immediate steps -- like rehiring some staff -- need to be taken to ensure the agency can continue meeting deadlines and making informed decisions on approvals.
The Trump White House’s “skinny” budget released Friday (May 2) outlines policy priorities largely in line with those in a leaked draft budget reported earlier by Inside Health Policy, but requests a slightly less steep cut to HHS -- it would fund HHS at $93.8 billion, a 26.2% decrease from the FY 2025, while the leaked draft proposed an approximately 30% cut.
