TheVoiceOfJoyce The latest in healthcare proscribing, including leniency on abortion medication available in Missouri, sadly 200 soldiers have the flu, since Vaccines were discontinued? Perhaps the Vaccine program is needed for National Security ? And there are tips for getting inexpensive drugs. Read on!

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Morning Briefing 

In This Edition:

From KFF Health News:

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES1. Indiana Takes On Powerful Hospitals by Capping Prices They Charge Employers “Government has to intervene, because healthcare is run like an unregulated utility,” Indiana’s GOP governor says of the state’s effort to regulate hospital prices. (Phil Galewitz and Samantha Liss, 6/22)

2. Try These Tips When You Can’t Afford Your Rx What if you can’t afford your prescription? “An Arm and a Leg” listeners share some of their favorite tips and hacks. (Dan Weissmann, 6/22)

3. Democrats Keep Healthcare at the Fore Senate Democrats hope to highlight health costs by forcing a vote on the Trump administration’s changes to the Affordable Care Act before the midterm elections. Meanwhile, Alabama is the latest state to try to cut off access to medication abortion via telehealth. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also, Rovner interviews Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute and Liz Fowler of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to discuss the employer health insurance tax exclusion. (6/18)

Summaries Of The News:

ADMINISTRATION NEWS4. US Will Discontinue HIV Funding For South Africa 

The Trump administration had pulled back on the amount of funds sent to the country. Because South Africa did not change policies that the U.S. considers discriminatory toward the white Afrikaner minority, no funds will now flow, an unidentified State Department official says. Plus, despite marching orders from Congress to continue foreign aid, the Trump administration has largely refused to comply, ProPublica reports.

Politico: Trump Administration To Phase Out HIV Funding For South Africa The Trump administration has decided to start phasing out HIV funding for South Africa following the country’s “failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration,” a State Department official told POLITICO on Thursday. The official, who agreed to discuss the decision only if POLITICO did not use their name, said the decision to “initiate a phased drawdown of PEPFAR programming in South Africa” is in line with President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order accusing South Africa of discriminating against its white Afrikaner minority and directing U.S. agencies to stop providing aid to the country unless it changes its policies. (Paun, 6/18)

ProPublica: Trump Is Defying Congress On Foreign Aid After the Trump administration upended the world’s largest foreign aid provider last year, terminating thousands of programs and firing nearly all of its staff, its plan for the agency was clear: Eliminate it entirely. But because it is a congressionally created agency, President Donald Trump needed lawmakers’ permission to do so. So this year, Trump officials asked Congress for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and dramatically reduce federal spending on food, medicine and lifesaving work around the world. (Barry-Jester, 6/22)

In related news about HIV funding —

News Service of Florida: Report: Florida’s AIDS Drug Program Could Use More Money  Lawmakers acted earlier this year to save a key AIDS drug program from drastic cuts, but a new report from the state released Monday indicates the program remains in peril. A report by the Florida Department of Health argues the state won’t be able to secure enough funds for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program if it continues to serve people at 400 percent of the poverty level. (Goni-Lessan, 6/19)

More news about the Trump administration —

The Hill: Medicare To Offer GLP-1 Obesity Drugs At Flat Monthly Rate: What To Know Starting in July, some Medicare beneficiaries will be able to access GLP-1 medications by paying one flat fee per month. The temporary program is set to run for a year-and-a-half through the end of 2027. But with less than two weeks before its launch, questions remain over how it will operate. The Medicare GLP-1 Bridge, described by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as a “time-limited demonstration,” will officially run from July 1, 2026, to Dec. 31, 2027. (Choi, 6/21)

HealthDay: Federal Push To Boost U.S. Primary Care Doctors Falls Short Federal efforts to expand the number of primary care doctors in America have fallen short, a new study says. Primary care’s share of 1,000 new U.S. residency positions funded by Medicare has dwindled over time, researchers reported June 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Overall, primary care positions increased by just 2% as a result of new laws passed in 2021 and 2023 to increase medical residencies in the United States. (Thompson, 6/22)

Stat: Health Disparity Researchers See A Threat In New Rules On NIH Grants  Deep inside a White House proposal to overhaul how the government awards grants is a short section that health disparities researchers say could disqualify much of their work from federal funding — perhaps the most serious threat yet to the future of their field. (Oza, 6/22)

Bloomberg: Merz Says US Expected To Honor Trade Pact After German Drug Pricing Probe Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he expects the US to stand by its trade commitments with Europe after Donald Trump’s administration launched a tariff investigation into Germany’s drug pricing. The German leader, who said decisions on pharmaceutical payments are a domestic matter, made the remarks after the US started an investigation under rules that allow the Office of the US Trade Representative to impose levies in response to unfair trade barriers. (Delfs and Kresge, 6/19)

Newsweek: Tulsi Gabbard Drops Documents She Says Relate To COVID, Fauci Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has released what she described as previously unseen communications and documents related to the origins of COVID-19, research funding, and the alleged actions of Dr. Anthony Fauci. The documents, released late Thursday as part of what the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) described as a yearlong declassification review, include internal communications, whistleblower allegations and intelligence-related material tied to debates over how the coronavirus pandemic began. (Commander and Stevenson, 6/19)

The Hill: Trump Cabinet’s Sauerkraut Obsession Isn’t Key To Weight Loss, Doctor Says A jar of sauerkraut has become an unlikely status symbol inside the Trump administration. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Vice President Vance have adopted a diet centered on fermented foods and grass-fed meat, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The diet is recommended by Dr. Sean O’Mara, who encourages patients to eat more sauerkraut, kimchi and grass-fed steak while cutting out alcohol and sugar. He says the approach reduces visceral fat and supports gut health. (Fischels, 6/20)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Democrats Keep Healthcare At The Fore Senate Democrats hope a little-used law from the 1990s will help draw attention to the healthcare cost issue by forcing a vote on the Trump administration’s recent changes to the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is demanding information from a medical journal that retracted a study that backed Kennedy’s claims of vaccine harm. (Rovner, 6/18)

On the opioid crisis —

AP: Staggering Amounts Of Fentanyl Hit Streets As The DEA Watched And Took No Action, Records Show Even as it battled the deadliest drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to hit the streets of New Mexico between 2023 and 2025, according to three current and former DEA agents and government records reviewed by The Associated Press. DEA agents repeatedly monitored shipments of fentanyl pills — but did not seize them — as federal prosecutors sought to bring bigger criminal cases against traffickers of a synthetic opioid that the White House last year designated a “ weapon of mass destruction.” (Mustian and Goodman, 6/22)

The New York Times: Cities And Schools Are Testing Wastewater For Illicit Drugs A foul odor permeated the early morning heat as city workers in Tempe, Ariz., unlocked a sewage monitoring shed and opened the tap of a collection jug that had been siphoning from the city’s wastewater over the previous day. They filled a jar, packed it in a blue cooler and hurried to the next shed, or “doghouse,” retrieving from 11 in all. Rushing to prevent the samples from degrading under the glowering sun, they delivered the coolers to a new municipal lab, where chemists test sewage for traces of dangerous drugs. (Hoffman, 6/21)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH5. Missouri Judge Restores Access To Medication Abortion 

On Thursday, Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang reversed a batch of 2018 restrictions on medication abortions. This was possible after Missourians passed the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment in 2024. Planned Parenthood said it will offer medication abortions starting this week.

St. Louis Public Radio: Planned Parenthood Will Resume Missouri Medication Abortions  Missouri’s Planned Parenthood affiliates will offer medication abortions [this] week for the first time since 2018 after a Jackson County judge struck down a slew of restrictions on Thursday. While the ruling will be appealed, Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang’s decision marks arguably the most legally significant move since Missourians approved an amendment protecting abortion rights in 2024. (Rosenbaum and Fentem, 6/18)

KOMU 8: Missouri Governor Responds After Judge Strikes Down Most Abortion Restrictions In a statement posted Friday on social media, Gov. Mike Kehoe said he agrees with Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s decision to appeal the ruling to the Missouri Supreme Court. “Yesterday’s ruling in Jackson County is disappointing, dangerous, and puts the safety of Missouri women in jeopardy,” Kehoe said in the post. Kehoe also called for support for an anti-abortion measure that will be on the ballot in November. (Becker, 6/19)

More news about abortion —

Des Moines Register: New Iowa Law Likely Won’t Stop Mail Order Abortion Pills, Critics Say A new Iowa law Republican lawmakers say will clamp down on mail order abortion pills from other states will have limited impact, some experts say. (Hoff, 6/22)

Politico: Republicans Don’t Want To Talk About Abortion. In These States, They May Have To Democrats are prioritizing other issues over abortion in the runup to the fall midterm elections, while Republicans are taking pains to avoid the topic altogether. But another wave of state ballot initiatives to protect a right to abortion could force candidates on both sides to articulate their positions. Progressive advocacy groups and Democratic strategists are confident that this year’s four abortion rights ballot measures — especially those in Virginia and Nevada — will put vulnerable GOP candidates in the hot seat with voters, 60 percent of whom believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases. (Ollstein, 6/21)

In other reproductive health news —

Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Seeks FDA Label Changes For Testosterone Therapy In Older Men The US Department of Health and Human Services wants to remove some of the stigma from testosterone treatment. The agency, through the US Food and Drug Administration, is asking manufacturers to take off warnings that have long appeared on hormone replacement therapy labels for older men whose testosterone levels decline naturally with age, it said in a statement Thursday. (Inampudi and Muller, 6/18)

CIDRAP: Women With Menstruation-Related Disorders More Likely To Be Diagnosed With STIs, Study Suggests Young women with menstruation-related disorders, such as endometriosis and dysmenorrhea (painful periods), were significantly more likely to be diagnosed as having an STI than women without those conditions, according to a large study from Japan published this week in PLOS One. Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to uterine tissue grows outside the uterus. While not strictly a menstrual disorder, it can cause pain, irregular periods, and infertility. (Bergeson, 6/18)

OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS6. Over 200 Recruits Fall Ill As Flu Outbreak Grows At Texas Air Force Base 

The outbreak started two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made flu vaccines optional for troops in the armed services, including those entering basic training. Up to this point, recruits going through basic training were required to receive vaccinations for a variety of viruses in their first week of boot camp, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

San Antonio Express-News: 222 Recruits At Lackland Reported Ill As Flu Outbreak Spreads U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro says 222 recruits in basic training have fallen ill at Lackland. The flu outbreak is in its third week. The outbreak comes two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made flu vaccines optional for troops in the armed services, including those entering basic training. One recruit died Tuesday, days after being admitted to Brooke Army Medical Center, but the Pentagon has not said if he presented symptoms for the flu. (Christenson, 6/20)

Also —

NBC News: FDA Panel Recommends Moderna’s MRNA Flu Shot For Older Adults A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Thursday recommended the approval of Moderna’s mRNA-based flu shot for older adults. If approved, it would be the world’s first messenger RNA flu shot, providing public health officials with a much more nimble tool to fight influenza. In a late-stage trial, the vaccine was found to be about 27% more effective than a standard flu shot. (Lovelace Jr., 6/18)

The New York Times: Buildings May Soon Have ‘Immune Systems’ That Fight Airborne Disease Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer, stood next to a pair of clear plastic boxes packed with tubes, nozzles and electronics, an odd-looking prototype that one day might serve to protect children in day care from airborne pathogens. A nozzle filled the right-hand box with a faint silvery mist. A pump pulled some of that air into the left-hand box, where a sampler trapped floating particles and droplets. Soon, a digital screen bolted to the box turned red: “Detected! Dust mite allergen Der f 1.” (Zimmer, 6/19)

On the spread of measles in Utah and Maryland —

AP: Utah Marks A Year Of Fighting Measles Utah has spent the past year fighting measles outbreaks — a grim milestone that could affect whether the United States can keep its measles-free designation. More than 680 people have gotten sick since the state’s first outbreak began on June 20, 2025. Unlike measles outbreaks in Texas, South Carolina and Arizona, the spread in Utah has been tough to contain to one region — infecting undervaccinated communities in nearly every county. (Shastri, 6/20)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Resident With Measles Traveled Through Dulles, DC Clinic Health officials in Maryland and the District of Columbia are investigating a confirmed measles case involving a Maryland resident who recently traveled internationally and may have exposed others at locations in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. (Henney, 6/21)

H5N1 bird flu is now on every continent —

BBC: Australia Confirms First Case Of Bird Flu As Virus Reaches Every Continent The H5N1 strain of bird flu has for the first time been found in Australia, the country’s agriculture ministry confirmed. It means the highly contagious variant has now reached every continent. The disease was found in a migratory seabird, a brown skua, in remote Western Australia, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said on Saturday. (Tan, 6/20)

CIDRAP: More Idaho Dairy Cattle Hit With H5N1 Avian Flu Recent updates from the US Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) show a spike of H5N1 avian flu activity in Idaho dairy cattle, with 33 cattle affected on dairy milking facilities in the past 30 days. Utah also reported three H5N1 detections among cattle this month. So far this year, APHIS has tracked 54 H5N1 cases among cattle, far fewer than the 917 reported in 2024. Last year, 171 cattle were sickened with avian flu. (Soucheray, 6/18)7. With Hantavirus Threat Behind Them, US Passengers Return To Daily Life 

All 18 American passengers who were aboard the MV Hondius were released from quarantine Sunday. Meanwhile in Congo, frontline healthcare workers are falling prey to Ebola as the virus surges. At least 18 doctors and other healthcare workers have died during the epidemic, according to Congo’s National Public Health Institute.

The New York Times: Hantavirus Quarantine Ends For 18 Americans Exposed On A Cruise Ship  Quarantine ended on Sunday for American passengers of a cruise ship that was hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak. The passengers had been held for weeks at a federal facility in Nebraska. The quarantine was lifted at 2 p.m. Central time, officials said. It marked a return to day-to-day life for all 18 passengers, including the six who had stayed at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center until the end of the 42-day period. Since the end of May, 12 had been released from the unit to home confinement. (Spoto, 6/21)

NBC News: The Hantavirus Quarantine Is Over. Here’s What Cruise Passengers And Scientists Learned. The moment ends a painful chapter of isolation and uncertainty for those exposed, who say they are looking forward to hugging parents, getting haircuts and touching grass. (Bendix, 6/21)

The latest on the Ebola outbreak —

Bloomberg: Ebola Cases Top 1,000 In Congo As Virus Infects Frontline Health Workers Ebola cases have surpassed 1,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where health workers are becoming infected before anyone realizes they’re treating the deadly virus, exposing a dangerous weakness in efforts to contain one of the world’s fastest-growing outbreaks. (Gale, 6/22)

AP: 6-Month-Old Ebola Victim Buried As Congo Outbreak Spreads Mourners gathered Friday to bury a 6-month-old girl who died from Ebola earlier this week, the third child to die at an orphanage in eastern Congo as authorities have struggled to contain the latest outbreak. Carrying a cross, people stood at a distance as the small coffin was lowered into the ground by masked and gloved health workers, and a Catholic priest prayed over her body. “It’s a feeling of sadness because we have lost one of our own, a daughter of the church,” said Father Innocent Ndogo. (Kabumba and McMakin, 6/20)

Bloomberg: Fighting Ebola Means Going Door To Door To Explain It’s Real Faced with a combative crowd demanding to see the body about to be buried in the trading hub of Bunia, the Red Cross team proposed a compromise borne from past Ebola outbreaks: They offered to open the coffin as long as onlookers brought protection to avoid infection. The rejection was swift. The crowd in this war-torn part of eastern Congo assaulted the volunteers, seriously injuring two of them, and opened the coffin, unwittingly exposing themselves to the virus at its most contagious. (Furlong, 6/20)

HEALTH INDUSTRY8. Mangione Drops Plan To Seek Psychiatric Defense In UnitedHealthcare CEO Slaying Case 

AP reported that the turnabout came just a day after Luigi Mangione’s lawyers told the judge that they planned to pursue a defense involving claims that the 28-year-old was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance on the day of CEO Brian Thompson’s death. But as AP noted, that approach would mean that Mangione would effectively be admitting he killed Thompson.

AP: Luigi Mangione’s Won’t Pursue A Psychiatric Defense In a stunning reversal, Luigi Mangione ‘s lawyers told a judge Thursday that he will no longer be asserting a psychiatric defense at his state murder trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The retraction came just a day after Mangione’s lawyers told Judge Gregory Carro that they planned to pursue a defense involving claims that the 28-year-old Ivy League graduate was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the Dec. 4, 2024, killing. (Sisak, 6/19)

In other news about the healthcare industry —

Asheville Watchdog: UNC Health Seeks Approval For New Hospital In Asheville UNC Health, the University of North Carolina’s hospital system, has applied for permission to open a 92-bed hospital near downtown Asheville. North Carolina’s state-owned nonprofit health provider, which already has a management agreement with UNCHealth Pardee in Henderson County, made the request to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services under the state’s Certificate of Need (CON) requirement, which requires regulatory approval. (Clifford, 6/20)

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