Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Government Shutdown Looms As GOP Brass Weigh Adding DOGE Cuts To Bill
Senior Republicans are seriously exploring how to include cuts made by Elon Musk鈥檚 Department of Government Efficiency in an upcoming government funding bill 鈥 a move that would skyrocket tensions with Democrats and drastically raise the potential for a government shutdown. Top GOP leaders and President Donald Trump鈥檚 team have been discussing the idea, which is far from finalized, according to three people who were granted anonymity to discuss the conversations. (Hill and Bade, 2/27)
At least three government lawyers working on defending a major Biden-era drug pricing law were laid off in mass cuts across the agency this month, according to a source familiar with the terminations. The attorneys were doing legal work implementing and defending the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that allows Medicare to directly negotiate down the price of drugs for the first time. Medicare is facing an onslaught of lawsuits filed by pharmaceutical companies and their allies arguing the new law is unconstitutional. (Cohrs Zhang and Tozzi, 2/27)
Joe Cardiello, PhD, had moved his entire young family to the Fort Collins, Colorado area in September to take a new job in the division of vector-borne diseases at CDC. Only 5 months later, he now finds himself facing yet another move -- because he was caught up in the Trump administration's first round of mass firings at federal agencies. "For now, I'm just applying to jobs, getting on daycare lists closer to Boulder and Denver, where there are more biotech jobs, and just getting our family ready for the next potential move," Cardiello told MedPage Today. (Fiore, 2/27)
Federal health officials due to speak at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting in Las Vegas next week have dropped out of the key health tech industry conference. (Trang, 2/27)
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are expressing concern to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that recent layoffs at U.S. health agencies are threatening the modernization of the organ transplant system.聽The pair of lawmakers asked Kennedy in a Wednesday letter to disclose which staff at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), tasked with implementing improvements to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), were impacted by layoffs. (Timotija, 2/27)
More on USAID 鈥
Starting Wednesday afternoon, a wave of emails went out from the State Department in Washington around the world, landing in inboxes for refugee camps, tuberculosis clinics, polio vaccination projects and thousands of other organizations that received crucial funding for lifesaving work. 鈥淭his award is being terminated for convenience and the interest of the U.S. government,鈥 they began. (Nolen, 2/27)
The watchdog for the U.S. Agency for International Development has yet to release two critical reports on the consequences of President Donald Trump鈥檚 funding freeze on crucial services in Africa and the Middle East, amid fears of retaliation from the White House, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post. (Rein and Hudson, 2/27)
