Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
4 Million People May Lose Housing Assistance Under New Trump Plan
Some 4 million people could lose federal housing assistance under new plans from the Trump administration, according to experts who reviewed drafts of two unpublished rules obtained by ProPublica. The rules would pave the way for a host of restrictions long sought by conservatives, including time limits on living in public housing, work requirements for many people receiving federal housing assistance and the stripping of aid from entire families if one member of the household is in the country illegally. The first Trump administration tried and failed to implement similar policies, and renewed efforts have been in the works since early in the president鈥檚 second term. (Coburn, 9/29)
On visa fees and foreign aid鈥
The American Medical Association and scores of specialty groups are urging the Trump administration to exempt foreign doctors from steep new fees for H-1B visas, saying the charges will exacerbate physician shortages, worsen patient care and drive up health care costs. Doctors from abroad make up nearly one quarter of the physician work force in the United States. (Caryn Rabin, 9/26)
The US pledged $160 million in interim assistance for HIV and tuberculosis testing and treatment in Mozambique, after months of uncertainty triggered by a foreign aid review in January that led to the closure of the US Agency for International Development. The funding will be used in some of the programs that were covered under the President鈥檚 Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar), the US initiative that provided life-saving HIV treatment across 55 countries and is estimated to have saved 26 million lives globally. (Cebola, 9/26)
On tariffs and drug prices 鈥
Mr. Trump鈥檚 100 percent tariff, expected to go into effect on Oct. 1, would not apply to drugs imported from the European Union. Instead, most of those brand-name products from the European Union are expected to be hit by a tariff of up to 15 percent secured as part of a trade deal over the summer. It was not immediately clear when that will take effect. However, big drugmakers like Roche, Novartis and AstraZeneca do some manufacturing in their home countries of Switzerland and Britain, which are not part of the European Union. (Robbins and Swanson, 9/26)
For months, as President Trump threatened to impose punishing tariffs on imported medicines, fears mounted that American patients would be harmed by higher prices and shortages of vital drugs. The details of the drug tariffs Mr. Trump announced on Thursday night are still coming into focus. (Robbins, 9/26)
It鈥檚 becoming increasingly clear that pharmaceutical companies can live with President Trump鈥檚 tariffs. What the industry can鈥檛 live with is uncertainty on drug prices. The sector has long traded at a discount to the broader market, but that gap has widened to its largest in decades as investors fret over Trump鈥檚 policies鈥攔anging from tariffs and price controls to the unpredictable influence of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Wainer, 9/27)
The arrival of what locals here call the 鈥淧fizer riser鈥 helped put this Irish coastal village on the map. When the U.S. pharma giant started making the ingredients for the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra in a factory here a few decades ago, the international media flocked to this small cluster of pebble-dashed houses. (Colchester, 9/27)
