TheVoiceOfJoyce The latest edition of KFF health news. It’s worth the read. Our Nation has an identity crisis. Do we fund Healthcare, education, freedoms of the press and speech and treat all citizens and immigrants humanly or do we pursue the Trump Regimes Agenda?

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES 1. Criminally Ill: Systemic Failures Turn State Mental Hospitals Into Prisons There has been a steep rise in the share of people with severe mental illnesses being sent to state psychiatric hospitals on court orders after being accused of serious crimes. The shift has all but halted patients’ ability to get care before they have a catastrophic crisis. (Sarah Jane Tribble and Doug Livingston, The Marshall Project – Cleveland, 12/22)2. Baltimore Drove Down Gun Deaths. Now Trump Has Slashed Funding for That Work. A spike in shootings during the covid pandemic propelled community violence intervention, a field that aims to stop gun deaths at the root. Baltimore used federal funds to launch a violence prevention office. But President Donald Trump has throttled such funds and instead is sending troops into cities. (Renuka Rayasam, 12/22)3. Medicaid Health Plans Step Up Outreach Efforts Ahead of GOP Changes Even as President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers say the One Big Beautiful Bill Act targets waste, fraud, and abuse, Medicaid health plans are hosting events across the U.S. to prevent low-income families from losing health insurance and food benefits next year. (Claudia Boyd-Barrett, 12/22)4. Journalists Zero In on ‘Certificate of Need’ Laws and Turbulent Obamacare Enrollment Season KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on regional media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (12/20)

Here’s today’s health policy haiku:

A SCIENTIFIC LESSON, UNLEARNED

Vaccinate babies —
every one of them at birth.
Save lives from hep B.

– Anonymous

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Summaries Of The News:

HEALTH LAW 1. With ACA Prices Set To Soar, Trump Pushes Health Insurers To Lower Costs

President Donald Trump said Friday that he would meet with insurance companies soon to pressure them to lower patients’ prices, Bloomberg reported. Insurance companies “are making so much money, and they have to make less, a lot less,” Trump said. In other news, CMS has created an Office of Rural Health Transformation to oversee the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program.

Bloomberg: Trump To Summon Health Insurance Execs To Ask For Premium Cuts President Donald Trump said he would convene insurance companies in the coming weeks in a bid to pressure them to reduce costs for Americans who will see their premiums rise following the expiration of Obamacare subsidies at year’s end. “I’m going to call a meeting of the insurance companies,” Trump told reporters on Friday at the White House. “I’m going to see if they get their price down, to put it very bluntly.” (Subramanian, 12/19)

Politico: Hakeem Jeffries Says Obamacare Subsidy Extension ‘Will Pass With A Bipartisan Majority’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday he remains confident that Congress will extend expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits despite persistent opposition from Republicans. In a Sunday morning interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week,” Jeffries dismissed Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s remarks that a clean three-year extension of the credits would be dead on arrival in the Senate, saying Thune “is not serious about protecting the health care of the American people.” (Wendler, 12/21)

Modern Healthcare: Exchange Enrollment Eye Plan Downgrades As ACA Subsidies Shrink Health insurance exchange shoppers facing huge premium hikes are scrambling for deals during this sign-up season. Insurance brokers report high interest in bottom-tier, lower-cost Bronze plans, policies only available outside the exchanges and alternatives such as short-term plans. Some of those consumers are downgrading from Silver or higher amid skyrocketing prices tied to the expiration of enhanced subsidies at the end of the year. (Tepper, 12/19)

The Hill: Health Care Priority For Americans As Subsidies Expire More Americans are listing health care as a top priority with Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire by the end of the year, according to a new poll. Almost 4 in 10 U.S. adults named health care or health issues as one of the top five issues they want the government to address in an open-ended question presented in a survey backed by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The Friday poll found that health care was the top issue for 45- to 59-year-olds, with 54 percent of the demographic ranking concerns as their top priority. (Fields, 12/19)

KFF Health News’ ‘On Air’: Journalists Zero In On ‘Certificate Of Need’ Laws And Turbulent Obamacare Enrollment Season KFF Health News senior correspondent Renuka Rayasam discussed gun violence in Bogalusa, Louisiana, on KALW’s Your Call on Dec. 19. (12/20)

What lawmakers are saying —

The Hill: James Lankford Defends GOP Stance On Obamacare Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said he would leave it to the American people to decide whether they blame Republicans for the lapse in enhanced ObamaCare subsidies at the end of the year, but he defended GOP efforts to strike a deal on the issue in recent weeks. In an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the conservative senator was asked if he shares Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) view that Republicans could pay the price politically if they let the COVID-era enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans expire at the end of the year. (Fortinsky, 12/21)

Politico: Democrats Are United In Bashing GOP On Obamacare. Medicare For All Could Reopen A Rift Progressives are pushing Medicare for All in some of the Democratic Party’s most competitive Senate primaries next year, threatening the unity the party has found on attacking Republicans over expiring Obamacare subsidies. In Maine, Graham Platner said he’s making Medicare for All a “core part” of his platform in his race against Gov. Janet Mills, the establishment pick who’s called for a universal health care program. In Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Rep. Robin Kelly are both championing the concept — and calling out rival Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi for not fully embracing it. (Kashinsky and Schneider, 12/21)

The Washington Post: ACA Enrollment Fraud Roiled Subsidy Extension Debate In Congress The Florida insurance brokers offered an enticing deal to unemployed and homeless people: Enroll in a Healthcare.gov health plan they weren’t eligible for in exchange for gift cards, food, alcohol or cash. They coached them to lie about their income to qualify for heavily subsidized coverage, according to court documents. Sometimes they enrolled people without their knowledge. A federal jury convicted Cory Lloyd and Steven Strong last month of collecting millions of dollars in commissions between 2018 and 2022 through a widespread plot to defraud the federal insurance marketplace. (Winfield Cunningham, 12/19)

Medicaid and Medicare developments —

Modern Healthcare: CMS Creates Rural Health Transformation Office The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services formed the Office of Rural Health Transformation, the agency announced Friday. The new office oversees the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion fund established under the tax law for states to improve access to care and boost outcomes in rural communities. CMS tasked the office with developing application review criteria, distributing funds to states, fielding public comments, readying data infrastructure, monitoring the progress of states’ transformation plans and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, among other responsibilities, according to a Federal Register notice. (Kacik, 12/19)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Proposes New Requirements For Transparency In Coverage Rule The Trump administration Friday proposed refining health insurance companies’ price transparency requirements. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a draft regulation that would change how health insurance companies and employers must disclose their negotiated rates with providers. “Americans have a right to know what healthcare costs before they pay for it,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. said in a news release Friday. (Tepper, 12/19)

KFF Health News: Medicaid Health Plans Step Up Outreach Efforts Ahead Of GOP Changes Carmen Basu, bundled in a red jacket and woolly scarf, stood outside the headquarters of her local health plan one morning after picking up free groceries. She had brought her husband, teenage son, and 79-year-old mother-in-law to help. They grabbed canned food, fruit and vegetables, and a grocery store gift card. And then Basu spotted a row of tables in the parking lot staffed by county social service workers helping people apply for food assistance and health coverage. Her mother-in-law, also a Medicaid recipient, might qualify for food assistance, she was told. (Boyd-Barrett, 12/22)

VTDigger: Centers For Children With Autism Fear Proposed Medicaid Changes May Threaten Ability To Operate Kingston attends an Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA, center called Bounce. The Essex program looks like a preschool, but it’s a clinical space where he and 46 other students receive personalized ABA treatment designed to reduce their problem behaviors and increase their skills — things like articulating their needs and feelings, potty-training and putting on clothes. Bounce is one of 20 ABA providers in Vermont who receive Medicaid — nearly half of those are other clinics. But, proposed changes to Vermont Medicaid billing rules have made several ABA providers across the state fearful about their ability to continue doing this work. (Gieger, 12/19)

ADMINISTRATION NEWS 2. Nine Drugmakers Agree To Trump’s ‘Most-Favored-Nation’ Pricing Deal

The deal requires the pharmaceutical companies to match what they charge in other developed countries for newly launched medications, including in commercial and cash-pay markets, as well as Medicare and Medicaid.

AP: 9 Big Pharmaceutical Companies Agree To Lower Drug Prices For Medicaid U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that nine drugmakers have agreed to lower the cost of their prescription drugs in the U.S. Pharmaceutical companies Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis and Sanofi will now rein in Medicaid drug prices to match what they charged in other developed countries. (Ho, 12/19)

Bloomberg: Trump Administration Proposes Models To Cut Medicare Spending The Trump administration proposed new payment cuts in Medicare for prescription drugs, even as pharmaceutical companies struck deals with the government in an effort to avoid just such measures. Friday evening, after an event with drugmakers at the White House, the administration said it plans to slash what Medicare pays for certain medicines administered in physicians’ offices and those dispensed at pharmacies. Medicare, the public insurance program for the elderly, is the biggest payer for pharmaceuticals in the country. (Cohrs Zhang, 12/19)

Regarding vaccines and other drugs —

Politico: RFK Jr. Wanted To Endorse The Danish Vaccine Schedule. He Was Forced To Pull Back Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came within hours of publicly promoting Denmark’s childhood vaccine schedule as an option for American parents — before legal and political concerns got in the way. A senior HHS official told POLITICO that a press conference set for Friday was canceled at the last minute after the HHS Office of the General Counsel said it would invite a lawsuit the administration could lose. A second senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the press conference, which HHS had publicly announced, was to be about the Danish schedule. (Röhn, 12/20)

Axios: Changes To The U.S. Childhood Vaccine Schedule Could Threaten Access Some leading vaccine manufacturers could be exposed to litigation they’ve been protected from for decades if the U.S. decides to adopt a new childhood vaccine schedule resembling Denmark’s, as it appears likely to do in the new year. The threat of expensive lawsuits could ultimately drive vaccine makers from the U.S. market, upending access to shots like those protecting against the seasonal flu, hepatitis and meningitis. (Owens, 12/22)

The Hill: Trump Administration Faces Pressure On Abortion Pill Review Anti-abortion voices are growing increasingly impatient for the Trump administration to complete a review of the abortion pill mifepristone, potentially altering its approval. But changing abortion access at the federal level could imperil an already vulnerable GOP in the upcoming midterms. (Choi, 12/21)

ABC News: What Trump’s Executive Order On Marijuana Could Mean For Medical Research Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The order moves cannabis from a Schedule I drug, a category that includes heroin and LSD, to a Schedule III drug, a category including ketamine, Tylenol with codeine and steroids. The executive order does not, however, legalize marijuana under federal law. Cannabis is currently legal in 40 states for medical use and in 24 states for recreational use. (Kekatos, 12/19)

In other administration developments —

The New York Times: F.D.A. Turmoil Keeps Spotlight On Its Commissioner Days after a division chief at the Food and Drug Administration resigned amid accusations that he used his federal power to seek revenge on a former business associate, the scandal took on a new life. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, and his top deputies brought the matter to the White House as evidence that the F.D.A.’s leadership was in chaos. (Jewett, 12/19)

Stat: FDA, Roiled By Layoffs And Political Turmoil, Faces 3 Key Issues In 2026 The Food and Drug Administration is in a precarious position as it heads toward 2026. The agency has been mired by high-profile departures, feuds between top leaders, accusations of politicization, and low morale. It has lost thousands of employees to layoffs and resignations and cannot seem to hold onto a director of the drug center, which has been led by five different people since January. (Lawrence, 12/22)

AP: Mangione’s Lawyers Say Bondi Has Conflict Of Interest That Taints Death Penalty Case Luigi Mangione’s lawyers contend that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to seek the death penalty against him in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was tainted by her prior work as a lobbyist at a firm that represented the insurer’s parent company. Bondi was a partner at Ballard Partners before leading the Justice Department’s charge to turn Mangione’s federal prosecution into a capital case, creating a “profound conflict of interest” that violated his due process rights, his lawyers wrote in a court filing late Friday. (Sisak, 12/20)

The Salt Lake Tribune: Dismissed Charges Against Surgeon Who Falsified Vaccine Cards Has Emboldened Others Kirk Moore, MD, had been on trial for 5 days, accused of falsifying COVID-19 vaccination cards and throwing away the government-supplied doses. The Utah plastic surgeon faced up to 35 years in prison if the jury found him guilty on charges that included conspiracy to defraud the United States. Testimony had paused for the weekend when Moore’s lawyer called him early one Saturday this July with what felt to him like unbelievable news. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had ordered Utah prosecutors to drop all charges, abruptly ending his two-and-a-half year court battle. (Schreifels, 12/20)

Stat: Topical Steroid Withdrawal Community Feels Sting Of NIH Turmoil On May 23, 2023, Kelly Barta arrived at the National Institutes of Health to figure out what was wrong with her. In a sense, she already knew: She had diagnosed herself with topical steroid withdrawal in 2012, and had gone on to become the president and executive director of a TSW advocacy group. But many doctors weren’t convinced the disorder existed, and as far as Barta could tell, most researchers didn’t care enough to dig into it. The fact that the biggest funder of biomedical research in the world was even trying to decipher its biology felt like a breakthrough. (Boodman, 12/22)

HEALTH INDUSTRY 3. UnitedHealth Releases First External Review In Bid To Regain Public Trust

UnitedHealth has pledged to take close to two dozen specific actions across the areas in which the report found it lacking, including unresolved issues regarding patient care management, and prior authorizations. Plus, several Illinois hospitals with religious ties spurn medical aid-in-dying law.

Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Flags Compliance Gaps In Outside Consultant Reviews UnitedHealth Group Inc. released the first outside reviews of its business practices — reports it commissioned that describe its policies as “robust” while pointing to ongoing problems in areas that have faced scrutiny. The health-care conglomerate cast Friday’s assessments from FTI Consulting Inc. and Analysis Group Inc. as early steps toward greater transparency across parts of its business that have drawn attention from regulators, the press and the public. (Tozzi, 12/19)

Chicago Tribune: Some Hospitals Won’t Participate In Medical Aid-In-Dying Though a new Illinois law allows doctors to help terminally ill people end their lives, several Illinois health systems with religious affiliations say they will not participate. OSF HealthCare, Ascension and Hospital Sisters Health System all say they will not take part in medical aid-in-dying. (Schencker, 12/19)

Modern Healthcare: Minnesota Can Take Control Of UCare, Fairview Files To Intervene Minnesota regulators can assume control of distressed health insurance company UCare — but a health system in the state wants to intervene. A state district court judge Wednesday approved the Minnesota Department of Health’s request to enter UCare into rehabilitation. The nonprofit insurer is scheduled to shut down next year after local competitor Medica acquires its last lines of business. The deal is projected to close in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approval. The rehabilitation will not interfere with the proposed deal. (Tepper, 12/19)

Modern Healthcare: How Function Health’s Jonathan Swerdlin Looks To Use AI In 2026 After a busy 2025, Function Health will place artificial intelligence at the centerpiece of its 2026 strategy. The company, which sells a subscription-based service that offers customers more than 160 lab tests and alerts them to potential medical problems, had an eventful year. In November, it launched Medical Intelligence Lab, a team of researchers, clinicians and technologists working to uncover a person’s unique biology by unifying data from lab testing, imaging, wearables, devices, and medical records. (Famakinwa, 12/19)

AP: How To Remember Your Health Questions During A Doctor’s Visit It’s not unusual for a 20-something to text Mom in a panic from the doctor’s office, seeking help answering a question. And patients of any age can struggle to recall all their medicines — or forget to mention a concern. Getting the most out of a doctor’s visit requires some advance preparation. Even the professionals plan ahead. (Neergaard, 12/19)

SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS 4. HPV Vaccines Prevent Much More Than Cervical Cancer, Study Finds

The research, published in JAMA Oncology, found that the rate of precancerous vulvar or vaginal lesions was 37% lower in those who’d gotten at least one dose of HPV vaccine. Also: proton beam radiation therapy, mpox, and more.

CIDRAP: HPV Vaccines Prevent Precancerous Lesions In Vulva And Vagina, Study Finds Although human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are best known for preventing cervical cancer, a new study from Sweden finds that women and girls who received the immunizations are also less likely to develop precancerous lesions of the vulva and vagina. The rate of precancerous vulvar or vaginal lesions was 37% lower in women and girls who received at least one dose of HPV vaccine than among study participants who did not, according to a study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute published yesterday in JAMA Oncology. (Szabo, 12/19)

The Baltimore Sun: Research Shows Proton Beam Therapy Improves Cancer Survival, Lowers Side Effects Proton beam radiation therapy performed 10% better at stopping cancer of the throat compared to traditional X-ray radiation, a new study shows, with 15% fewer side effects. (Hille, 12/19)

Stat: Unpopular Diet For Cancer Patients Gets Another Look Oncologists have been moving away from the notoriously unpopular neutropenic diet. It requires nearly all food to be cooked to high temperatures — or, as some have described it, “boiled to death” — to reduce the risk of food-borne illnesses. But since evidence in recent years suggested the diet didn’t actually help ward off infections, doctors started leaning away from a strict neutropenic diet. (Chen, 12/22)

AP: US Military To Stop Shooting Goats And Pigs For Training The U.S. military will stop its practice of shooting pigs and goats to help prepare medics for treating wounded troops in a combat zone, ending an exercise made obsolete by simulators that mimic battlefield injuries. The prohibition on “live fire” training that includes animals is part of this year’s annual defense bill, although other uses of animals for wartime training will continue The ban was championed by Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican who often focuses on animal rights issues. (Finley, 12/19)

CIDRAP: Reports Show How Mpox Clade 1b Spreads Through Non-Sexual Contact In DR Congo, Ireland In a study published yesterday in Eurosurveillance, a team led by Johns Hopkins University researchers describe an mpox clade 1b outbreak in Uvira, a densely populated city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where transmission was driven primarily by household contact rather than sexual exposure. A second report in the same journal details sexual, household, and health care spread of clade 1b in Ireland’s first documented outbreak. (Bergeson, 12/19)

CIDRAP: Experimental Multistage Malaria Vaccine Shows Promising Protection In Small Trial A multistage malaria vaccine showed encouraging levels of protection against controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) in Malian adults with lifelong exposure to the causative parasite, according to a new phase 2 randomized controlled trial published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The investigational vaccine, ProC6C-AlOH/Matrix-M, targets multiple stages in the life cycle of Plasmodium falciparum, a protozoan that causes the most severe form of malaria in people. (Bergeson, 12/19)

Also —

CNN: Does Science Agree It’s Better To Give Than Receive? A Doctor Explains The holidays are here, which means you’re probably thinking about gifts — what to buy, whom to give to and how much to spend. Gift-giving is often framed as a source of stress and obligation, but a growing body of research suggests there may also be something beneficial about giving itself. (Hetter, 12/21)

PUBLIC HEALTH 5. Seasonal Viruses On The Rise As Holiday Travel Increases

As one of the busiest travel weeks begins, cases of flu, norovirus, and covid are on the upswing nationwide. Also: The CDC has reported two new flu-related deaths in children and nearly 5 million cases of influenza across the U.S.

In This Edition:

From KFF Health News:

A SCIENTIFIC LESSON, UNLEARNED

Summaries Of The News:

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