Axios: “Almost a quarter of workers in the U.S. — 23 million adults — are experiencing ‘job lock,’ staying in roles they don’t want to avoid losing health insurance benefits, according to a new Gallup analysis.”
“Why it matters: Women and people who have chronic health conditions feel the burden most because health care costs limit their career mobility, wage growth and life satisfaction.”
“Generic drug manufacturers will have two years to move production to the U.S. or face a 100% import duty from August 2028, President Donald Trump said in a social media post Tuesday,” Bloomberg reports.
“That levy would then double a year later, to 200%, in August 2029.”
“The U.S. measles case count for this year has surged past last year’s total and now stands at 2,295 — a level that hasn’t been seen in 35 years, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker that compiles state and local health data,” Axios reports.
“The Trump administration announced Tuesday it was withholding an additional $1 billion in Medicaid funds from California and Minnesota, the second time it has targeted the two states with Democratic governors for suspected fraud in their public health insurance programs,” the New York Times reports.
“The federal government will hold more than $867 million in payments from California and about $200 million from Minnesota until they can provide proof that certain claims were legitimate.”
NOTUS: “Republicans have publicly and privately fretted that their cuts to the social safety net could be a liability in battleground states. The race for Virginia’s 1st Congressional District is a test of just how much.”
“It’s a contest taking shape around the future of health care, and particularly Virginia’s rural hospitals. Three such clinics shuttered last year in Virginia, directly citing the One Big Beautiful Bill as a reason. A state legislative committee deemed that 13 more hospitals risk the same fate, though the two in Wittman’s district have no immediate plans to close.”
“The latest Senate debate over a Trump health appointment kicks off Wednesday with a less polarizing nominee than some of the president’s previous picks — but that doesn’t mean controversies around vaccines and public health are over,” Axios reports.
“Former deputy surgeon general Erica Schwartz will have to convince lawmakers she has a vision to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but can still work with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who clashed with the last full-time CDC director over vaccine policy changes.”
“The end of U.S. work authorizations for hundreds of thousands of Haitians is threatening to leave short-staffed nursing homes, hospitals and home-care agencies with even fewer caregivers,” Bloomberg reports.
“Employment permits for more than 350,000 people covered by Temporary Protected Status could begin expiring Friday after last month’s Supreme Court ruling allowed the Trump administration to end programs for Haitian and Syrian nationals. The exact timeline may depend on further action by immigration authorities and courts, but employers have little choice but to begin removing affected workers from their payrolls.”
The Guardian: Trump immigration cuts could worsen U.S. caregiver shortage, experts say.
“Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) criticized President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers over Obamacare on Wednesday, suggesting that it could now be referred to as ‘Trumpcare,'” Fox News reports.
Said Massie: “Might as well call it Trumpcare now. Our party has made no serious effort to repeal Obamacare and legalize affordable health insurance after taking control of the House, Senate and White House.”
He added: “Why? Because the current system enriches insurance and hospital companies.”
“After years of rampant expansion into nearly every corner of the health care system, the biggest insurance conglomerates are confronting new efforts to break up their businesses,” the New York Times reports.
“Arguing that the companies have become too dominant, Arkansas and Tennessee passed laws that aim to prevent the companies from managing prescription benefits and running retail and mail-order pharmacies. Lawmakers in other states and in Washington have proposed similar restrictions.”
“In response, the three companies — UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health and Cigna — are fiercely fighting back. They and their allies have filed lawsuits, deployed lobbyists, pestered customers with texts and blanketed the airwaves with advertisements.”
“Rates for many Affordable Care Act plans rose by double digits this year. Insurers want to do the same next year,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Some of the biggest Obamacare companies are seeking hefty premium increases for 2027, often for the second year in a row.”
NOTUS: Health insurers are proposing to increase premiums again.
“There was a national reckoning after the 2024 presidential campaign about federal officials — Joe Biden and his White House, specifically — hiding important health information from the public,” CNN reports.
“But the hiding hasn’t stopped. If anything, it appears to be getting worse.”
“Increasingly, some very high-profile public officials seem to have concluded that constituents and the broader public simply aren’t entitled to basic information explaining lengthy absences from their jobs. And their staffs are enabling them.”
Rolling Stone: So… What’s going on with Mitch McConnell?
“Democratic socialist and progressives’ success in this year’s primaries is evidence of new enthusiasm for Medicare for All plans that many centrists have long dismissed as costly pipe dreams,” Axios reports.
“The health affordability crisis and widespread frustration with the medical system are fueling a new appetite for big-government solutions to address drug prices, insurance premiums and long-term care costs.”
Rolling Stone: “Kennedy’s HHS was supposed to purge cozy relationships and conflicts of interest from health care policy; to rid the food supply of contaminants sickening Americans, from pesticides to artificial dyes; to stop advancing Big Pharma’s interests and, instead, scrutinize the safety profile of multiple vaccines.”
“But the withdrawal, which left Kennedy in the dark, shows the limits of his influence in the Trump administration and the way the White House has used the MAHA coalition for votes and talking points, while undermining its priorities when politically advantageous.”
“Tensions over pesticide use erupted in an Oval Office meeting last week, as a top agriculture lobbyist warned President Trump that an executive order calling for pest-killing alternatives would cost Trump support from farming interests,” Axios reports.
“The confrontation, which one attendee called ‘shocking,’ exposed a sharp fault line in Trump’s coalition — the push by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement to reduce conventional pesticides vs. farming interests determined to preserve them.”
“A slew of Trump health nominees are awaiting Senate confirmation hearings — and most have to go through a committee chaired by a senator who recently clashed with President Trump,” Axios reports.
“While the administration tries to staff up some health agencies after last year’s DOGE cuts, top leadership roles remain unfilled.”
“There are no full-time political leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration. The surgeon general’s post is vacant.”
“Half of the states are suing the Trump administration over its directives for implementing Medicaid work requirements, arguing that exemptions for sick people are too narrow and violate administrative law,” Axios reports.
“Democrats contend the administration’s rules will jeopardize care for some of the frailest Americans and cause more upheaval in states that already are rushing to implement the requirements by Jan. 1.”
“Prominent activists with the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement are raging and saying they feel betrayed after the Supreme Court sided with pesticide maker Monsanto on Thursday and said it did not need to put a warning label about a potential cancer risk associated with its Roundup weedkiller,” NewsNation reports.
“The backlash could test the movement’s ties with the Republican Party, especially after the Trump administration backed Monsanto in the case.”
“Sen. Bill Cassidy strongly criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his vaccine skepticism and handling of the nation’s public health, despite having delivered the key vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination last year,” CBS News reports.
Said Cassidy: “If you build public health upon a foundation of lies, then you’re going to have the absence of adequate public health.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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