Trump Seeks to Cut Basic Scientific Research by Roughly One-Third, Report Shows www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/s...

Medicare Advantage plans target veterans and claim offering dental and vision benefits justify high reimbursements. But we find veterans in MA used these services with the same frequency as veterans in traditional Medicare. @joefigs.bsky.social @hsph.harvard.edu

Taken together, the comprehensive CMS payments MA plans get to care for vets (especially those who get little to no medical care paid by MA) are simply not justified by the “extra” MA supplemental benefits. Urgent need for VA and CMS to fix this inefficiency to tune of $BILLIONS per year.

Using national survey data, we find: 1. No significant differences in total utilization or spending of dental & vision services between vets in MA vs TM. 2. MA plans only spend ~$82 per veteran enrollee on dental care and ~$6 more on vision aids than what TM vets get.

Many veterans enrolling in Medicare Advantage get zero care paid by plans. MA insurers argue that vets get extra benefits (vision + dental). But in new @jama.com study, we find that this claim is NOT actually the truth. @adambeckman.bsky.social @hsph.harvard.edu jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Veterans in Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare used dental and vision services at similar rates, with no significant difference in total spending. #SGIM25 https://ja.ma/3ZficKj#SGIM25

Medicaid cuts would threaten rural hospitals, nursing homes in Colorado www.denverpost.com/2025/03/16/m...

“In its 60 years, Medicaid has swelled from a small program that provided medical care to poor Americans receiving cash assistance to the largest source of public insurance.” An important look into who suffers most from potential Medicaid cuts. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

Breaking: RFK Jr. moves to quietly eliminate public comment from HHS's decision making: www.statnews.com/2025/02/28/r...

"The budget committee document listed several possible options, such as...eliminating the tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals" nytimes.com/interactive/... by @sangerkatz.bsky.social @aliciaparlap.bsky.social h/t Naomi Stark

In clinic, I just saw the social safety net at work yet again: a patient newly enrolled in Medicaid having her first primary care visit at a community health center. She said plainly it saved her life. Patriotism means strengthening the safety net for people who rely on it, not ripping it apart.

RIP to one of the bona fide greats

“The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is still blocking most ongoing scientific funding over concerns about "diversity, equity and inclusion" (DEI), according to NIH sources and internal NIH correspondence.” popular.info/p/update-nih...

Update on the Measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/u... There likely hundreds of cases, so many not being diagnosed. And many more to come. All preventable.

Researchers working on the Career Firefighter Health Study received notice last week of the CDC contract’s termination.

DOGE in practice: Disabled Army veteran who has 4 kids and did 3 tours overseas is fired from his job at Bronx VA hospital

A Montana House committee has advanced a bill to ban mRNA vaccines. Not just the COVID vaccine, mind you -- this is any mRNA vaccine. And not just withhold recommendation -- this is an outright prohibition dailyinterlake.com/news/2025/fe...

We are seeing the most severe flu season in 15 years and an inability to send data to the World Health Organization or release complete health alerts to clinicians means that we are unable to have the best evidence to make decisions. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Missed this yesterday: Ohio reports a suspected human case of #H5N1 #birdflu in a farmworker exposed to infected poultry. Needs confirmation by #CDC. odh.ohio.gov/media-center...

Some good news–Medicaid in Massachusetts just made it easier for members to access needed prenatal vitamins and oral contraceptives. New standing order from MassHealth across pharmacies: www.mass.gov/doc/pharmacy...

Don't look away!

People aren't always aware that if they have Medicare Advantage & later want to switch to Original Medicare after more than 1 year, they likely won't have guaranteed access to Medigap. Only a few states have laws to ensure this. This year, IL & WA are considering legislation to ensure that access.

Community health centers are now starting to shut down across the country because of Trump’s executive orders. These centers serve 1-in-5 rural patients in America.

Erasing facts, history, and data isn't leadership or public service

Among the websites purged by the Trump administration today: the National Park Service's website for the National Japanese American Memorial in D.C., which acknowledges the "grave injustice" of the internment of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans www.nps.gov/places/japan...

The entire website for the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) is very nearly stripped bare. This is so, so devastating. orwh.od.nih.gov/research/fun...

The web page about section 1557, the ACA’s prohibition of discrimination based on race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex, no longer exists. www.hhs.gov/civil-rights...

On the left, CDC’s page of vaccine-specific recommendations from its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) On the right, that page tonight

Remarkable we are still debating this–but mandatory, rigorous accreditation for health services in correctional settings is the floor Now, Professors @marcellaalsan.bsky.social & Yang prove accreditation in jails improves quality, while reducing mortality and recidivism: www.nber.org/papers/w33357

really good (and important) to see organizations like @rwjf.bsky.social — who are more insulated from the federal government's recent efforts to undermine research — reaffirming their commitment to doing health policy work centered around equity and inequality www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwj...

NSF funding literally helped create the internet, MRI technology, and American Sign Language. Defunding and pausing science is just bad policy.

Community health centers provide essential care to 31M+ people—including uninsured people, people with low incomes, and people who live in rural areas. They're already in a precarious financial position, and this abrupt funding freeze doesn't help. www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2024/co...

Reason #439 to fund Medicaid – Medicaid supports people in rural parts of the U.S. Children & adults in rural areas rely heavily on Medicaid for health insurance. And rural hospitals in states that did not expand Medicaid eligibility under the ACA have fared worse financially.

WIC. They are pausing WIC. That's the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Last time I checked (a while ago), every dollar spent on WIC produced over a dollar in savings *in the same fiscal year.* For most people, though, feeding infants and mothers is enough.

The Trump admin: Freezes federal grants, but "mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP will continue without pause." Meanwhile, states were locked out of their Medicaid fund accounts. Complete confusion for a program that covers 79 million people. www.statnews.com/2025/01/28/f...

I hear that the extremely cool Medicaid director in Oregon (IYKYK) is looking for a chief of staff: oregon.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/SOR_Ex...

They’re stopping WIC payments. WIC provides nutrition (& healthcare) to pregnant women & children under 5. Despite being massively underutilized, >50% of all US babies rely on WIC. Every $1 spent on prenatal WIC benefits saves >$3 in healthcare expenses (mostly to taxpayers) in the 1st yr of life

Medicare Advantage plans (private insurance plans that take federal Medicare dollars) advertise “supplemental benefits” (dental, vision, hearing) as an ‘advantage’ over traditional Medicare but their enrollees have no better access to those services, and much of those costs still come out of pocket:

Kind, good, and wildly talented people made up the Office of the 21st Surgeon General. 4 years ago, we started planning and doing. Since then, Vivek and this team brought focus and urgency to Covid-19, youth mental health, social media, alcohol, gun violence, and loneliness.

Wonderful celebration of the work of the Office of the Surgeon General, led by our @yalesom.bsky.social @yalemedicine.bsky.social alum, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Great to see so many friends at this event. @adambeckman.bsky.social @dralicechen.bsky.social @alikhan28.bsky.social

CBO's out with their new deficit reductions options. Just look at all that $$ on the table if we paid Medicare Advantage plans closer to what the law intended. www.cbo.gov/system/files...

5th person confirmed to be cured of HIV. Big news. abcnews.go.com/Health/5th-p...

Baltimore is looking for a great health commissioner... www.governmentjobs.com/careers/bake...

Welp, the news is out. It's a gutting day for us at STAT with layoffs of 11 treasured, hardworking colleagues. I can't say this loud enough: Please subscribe/support the journalism you trust. Science writing jobs are going extinct at a time when we're needed most. www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/09/b...

An outstanding interactive piece by Hank Shteamer @darkforcesswing.bsky.social about Art Kane’s “Harlem 1958" of jazz giants: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I joined this app just to share this incredible new investigation into the fraud and fakery going on at the country’s largest chain of methadone clinics: www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/h... By the amazing @bykatiethomas.bsky.social and @jsgatnyt.bsky.social and edited by @davidenrich.bsky.social and me

What might the next administration mean for the ACA and Medicaid? @larrylevitt.bsky.social writes on potential actions, including: - Letting ACA subsidies expire (raising premiums for enrollees) - Cutting Medicaid spending through caps/block grants jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Two great health economist openings in the Health Analysis Division of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). phg.tbe.taleo.net/phg03/ats/ca...