�鶹Ů��

For the first time, the federal government is requiring municipal water systems to remove six synthetic chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems that are present in the tap water of hundreds of millions of Americans. The extraordinary move from the Environmental Protection Agency mandates that water providers reduce perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known collectively as PFAS, to near-zero levels. Exposure to PFAS has been associated with metabolic disorders, decreased fertility in women, developmental delays in children and increased risk of some prostate, kidney and testicular cancers, according to the E.P.A. Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator, called the new regulation “life changing.” (Friedman, 4/10)

Francisco Ruiz’s appointment as the director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy has elicited widespread acknowledgment across various sectors. Ruiz, a distinguished figure in public health with a history of collaboration and strategic partnerships, assumes the role as the first-ever Latino to serve as ONAP’s director, underscoring a commitment to diversity and inclusivity in addressing public health challenges. (Laenen, 4/9)

Veterans like Steven Price were left out of a law that made it easier to get care and benefits from the VA. He says his leukemia diagnosis can be traced toxin exposure while deployed in Panama. (Frame, 4/10)

Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports, said ... in a statement. "The USDA should remove Lunchables from the National School Lunch Program and ensure that kids in schools have healthier options." Consumer Reports said it found high levels of sodium in Lunchables, detected lead and cadmium in tests and also observed the presence of phthalates, which can impact reproductive health and the human hormonal system. (Archie and Hernandez, 4/10)

Food-is-medicine programs are spiking in popularity, with health systems, grocers and delivery services getting in on the action. But the efforts are far from hitting their stride. Programs have had trouble securing funding and settling on a uniform definition of what food-is-medicine really is — or what it should be as such efforts try to tackle poor nutrition. Even the name of the initatives is up for debate, with some organizations using "food is medicine" while others opt for "food as medicine." (DeSilva, 4/10)

The Arizona Legislature devolved into shouts of “Shame! Shame!” on Wednesday as Republican lawmakers quickly shut down discussion on a proposed repeal of the state’s newly revived 1864 law that criminalizes abortion throughout pregnancy unless a woman’s life is at risk. ... House Democrats and at least one Republican tried to open discussion on a repeal of the 1864 abortion ban, which holds no exceptions for rape or incest. GOP leaders, who command the majority, cut it off twice and quickly adjourned for the week. Outraged Democrats erupted in finger-waving chants of “Shame! Shame!” (Snow and Lee, 4/11)

To better understand the court itself, look no further than the year 2016, when Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, successfully expanded the court’s membership from five to seven justices. By the time Mr. Ducey left office at the end of 2022, he had easily eclipsed the state record for judicial appointments to various courts. He had also changed the nominating process by which judges are selected, essentially giving more power to the governor. (Chen and Wines, 4/10)

Abortion providers in Arizona faced chaos and confusion after the state’s highest court on Tuesday ruled that a 160-year-old abortion ban is enforceable, throwing abortion access into question. Dr. DeShawn Taylor, founder and president of the Phoenix-based Desert Star Institute for Family Planning, said she was initially unsure how quickly the change could go into effect, so she rushed her staff to call seven patients with appointments on Tuesday to ask them to come in earlier in the day. (Victoria Lozano and Bendix, 4/10)

William Howell, a New Yorker tasked with writing the code that would enshrine Arizona as a territory, cracked open the law books of a neighboring state as a model: California. In California’s laws, William Howell found and included — almost word-for-word — its provision on abortion. The paragraph is tucked into a section of Arizona code about punishment for poisoning another person. (Pinho and Wilson, 4/10)

In a few weeks, Florida and Arizona are set to join most states in the southern U.S. in banning abortion. ... Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, has been tracking abortion facilities and travel distances since 2009. She analyzed how these latest rulings will affect the access map. "Because of these bans, it's about 6 million women of reproductive age who are experiencing an increase in distance of more than 200 miles," she says. (Simmons-Duffin and Fung, 4/11)

Overwhelming evidence shows that abortion pills are safe and effective. But the experience can feel very different in states where abortion is illegal. As more women in states with abortion bans choose to end their pregnancies on their own, without directly interacting with a medical professional, they are thrust into a largely ad hoc, unregulated system of online and grass-roots abortion pill distributors — an experience that, while deemed generally safe by medical experts, can be confusing, scary and, at times, deeply traumatic. (Kitchener, 4/11)

Donald Trump said Wednesday he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected to the White House again, reversing a promise the former president made as a candidate in 2016 and stood by during his first term in office. Trump’s latest shift on abortion is a remarkable position for a Republican presidential nominee and it is illustrative of Trump’s desire to make one of his greatest political liabilities disappear. It follows a lengthy statement released Monday in which Trump said that states and voters should decide how and when to restrict abortion but left unclear how far he would take that approach. (Contorno and Sullivan, 4/10)

Two days after he said states should make their own decisions about regulating abortion, former president Donald Trump criticized Arizona for reinstating an abortion law he said goes too far. “That will be straightened out,” Trump said when asked by a reporter Wednesday about the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate a near-total ban on abortion in the state. (LeVine and Vazquez, 4/10)

The former president on Wednesday responded to the Arizona Supreme Court’s reviving a harsh 1864 abortion ban — which indeed threatens abortion providers with two to five years in prison — by punting on this basic issue. Asked whether doctors who provide abortions should be punished, Trump allowed that certain states could do that. “I’d let that be to the states,” Trump said. “You know, everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights. And what we wanted to do is get it back to the states, because for 53 years it’s been a fight. And now the states are handling it. And some have handled it very well, and the others will end up handling it very well." (Blake, 4/10)

The problem for Republicans doesn’t stop at abortion, but extends to the possible curtailment of IVF. A constellation of right-leaning groups, from former Vice President Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom to the Heritage Foundation, have mounted efforts to restrict the widely popular procedure. “Republicans,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster, “are going to have to not be on the other side of IVF — I mean, we’re looking at an issue that is 90 percent supported by Americans.” (Wren, Leonard and Fernandez, 4/10)

POLITICO spoke to Jodi Hicks, president of Planned Parenthood California, on the lessons learned from that fight and what this busy week of abortion news — former President Donald Trump appearing to side against a national ban and the Arizona Supreme Court upholding a 1864 state law imposing a near total ban — means for the abortion rights movement. (Mason, 4/10)

Medicare for the first time has estimated that a new Alzheimer’s treatment could cost the program billions of dollars by next year — well beyond what Wall Street or even the drug’s manufacturer have projected — according to a document obtained by STAT. (Herman and Zhang, 4/11)

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit accusing Regeneron Pharmaceuticals of manipulating Medicare pricing by inflating the average sales price for its expensive and widely prescribed Eylea treatment for serious eye disease. (Silverman, 4/10)

The number of ongoing and active drug shortages in the U.S. stood at 323 during the fourth quarter of last year — the highest figure reached since such data began being tracked in 2001 — underscoring growing concerns about patient harm across the country. (Silverman, 4/11)

Ho Anh had just started working at Lemonaid Health when he was caught up in a sting. In 2017, after receiving reports about the telehealth site, an investigator for the California medical board logged on to Lemonaid using an alias. “Mark Peters” filled out a brief questionnaire about his imaginary symptoms, and Anh answered in a message: “Mark” likely had a bacterial sinus infection, the doctor said, writing a prescription for 10 days of amoxicillin. (Palmer, 4/11)

Vertex Pharmaceuticals will buy Alpine Immune Sciences, a maker of protein-based medicines that harness the immune system, for $4.9 billion, the companies announced Wednesday. It is the largest acquisition in Vertex’s history. (Herper and Feuerstein, 4/10)

VillageMD selected Jim Murray to serve as president and chief operating officer, effective April 1. Murray is tasked with leading operations, including those of Village Medical, Summit Health and CityMD, for the Walgreens-backed organization, according to a Wednesday news release.  (DeSilva, 4/10)

Nigeria's health regulator is recalling a batch of Johnson & Johnson children's cough syrup after finding an unacceptably high level of a potentially fatal toxic substance, it said on Wednesday. Laboratory tests on Benylin Paediatric showed a high level of diethylene glycol, which has been linked to the deaths of dozens of children in Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon since 2022 in one of the world's worst waves of poisoning from oral medication. (4/10)

Stanford Medicine investigators have implicated a type of immune cell known as an interstitial macrophage in the critical transition from a merely bothersome COVID-19 case to a potentially deadly one. Interstitial macrophages are situated deep in the lungs, ordinarily protecting that precious organ by, among other things, engorging viruses, bacteria, fungi and dust particles that make their way down our airways. But it's these very cells, the researchers have shown in a study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, that of all known types of cells composing lung tissue are most susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2. (Stanford University, 4/10)

Findings from the largest UK study of patients admitted to hospital with coronavirus show that long Covid leads to ongoing inflammation which can be detected in the blood. In an analysis of more than 650 people who had been in hospital with severe Covid-19, patients with prolonged symptoms showed evidence of their immune system being activated. (Massey, 4/9)

Sen Bernie Sanders, Ind.-VT, who chairs the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee, yesterday released a draft of proposed long-COVID moonshot legislation, which would earmark $1 billion for long-COVID research over the next decade. Sanders said the time is overdue for Congress to treat long COVID as the public health emergency that it is. "Congress must act now to ensure a treatment is found for this terrible disease that affects millions of Americans and their families," he said. "Far too many patients with Long COVID have struggled to get their symptoms taken seriously." (Schnirring, 4/10)

Theo Huot de Saint-Albin was a 9-year-old elementary school student when he first contracted COVID-19 in July 2020, near the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Four years later, as much of the world has moved on from the pandemic and resumed normal life, Theo, now nearly a teenager, is still battling the effects of long COVID. "What happened directly after COVID-19 was worse than my actual COVID-19," Theo, now in seventh grade, told "Good Morning America." (Kindelan, 4/10)

First described more than 150 years ago, the syndrome has proliferated since the coronavirus pandemic. Before 2020, 1 million to 3 million people suffered from POTS in the United States, researchers estimate. Precise numbers are difficult to come by because the condition encompasses a spectrum of symptoms, and many people have still never heard of it. Recent studies suggest 2 to 14 percent of people infected with the coronavirus may go on to develop POTS. (Cha, 4/10)

Gov. Gavin Newsom is setting a government-wide requirement that state employees work from the office two days a week starting in June, according to a memo his cabinet secretary sent to top state officials on Wednesday and shared exclusively with POLITICO. The directive is a significant policy shift for the administration, which from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has allowed leaders of the state’s roughly 150 agencies, departments and offices to set their own remote work policies for the state’s 240,000 workers. (Venteicher, 4/10)

Serial COVID-19 testing of 50,000 children in 714 German daycare facilities over 1 year didn't result in increased infections and averted 7 to 20 days of post-exposure quarantine per child, according to a study published today in Pediatrics. (Van Beusekom, 4/10)

Labcorp, a lab services company based in North Carolina, today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for its PCR Test Home Collection Kit for mpox, the first at-home sample collection kit of its kind for the virus. In a statement, the company said the test is available for physicians to order for use in adults who have suspected mpox infections. (Schnirring, 4/10)

Mpox cases have been elevated since October, with an average of roughly 200 monthly cases detected per month, spurring efforts to avoid a summer surge like what was seen in 2022. Recent numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed a startling difference between the first quarter of 2023 and 2024, with the first three months of this year seeing nearly double the rate of cases seen the same time last year. (Choi, 4/11)

A 4-year-old Detroit resident was diagnosed with measles, health officials announced Wednesday. The Detroit Health Department is alerting residents of the case and the exposure sites, including three healthcare facilities where the 4-year-old was taken for treatment. No other cases have been confirmed in relation to this incident at this time, including with the child's family members, who are following isolation protocols. (Powers, 4/10)

The North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDAC) today announced that tests have confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in one of the state's dairy herds, raising the number of affected states to seven. Officials didn't detail the potential source of the virus, but said movements of cattle from earlier affected states has been suspended. (Schnirring, 4/10)

People in at least two states have been hospitalized with botulism-like illness after receiving cosmetic injections – commonly known as “botox” – that were administered in non-medical settings. (McPhillips, 4/10)

Whooping cough is making a post-pandemic comeback in China, with cases surging more than 20-fold in the first two months of 2024. The world’s second-most populous country reported a combined 32,380 cases of pertussis — more commonly known as whooping cough — in January and February, compared with 1,421 cases during the same period in 2023, according to the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration. There were 13 deaths. (4/10)

Bug spray is out of stock across Argentina as the country confronts its worst-ever outbreak of dengue, a mosquito-borne illness that’s surged across Latin America amid high heat and heavy rains. Argentina reported 233,000 cases of dengue so far during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer — about eight times the number of case reported during the same week last year — and 161 deaths, according to its Health Ministry. (Tobias, 4/10)

A cluster of rare fungal infections was found in two pet cats and a vet who treated them, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday in a report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The three cases — in late 2022 and early 2023 — were caused by a fungus called Sporothrix schenckii. The CDC is monitoring the spread of a similar fungal infection, also in cats, in South America. That infection is spread by a related fungus, Sporothrix brasiliensis, which hasn’t been detected in the U.S. (Sullivan, 4/10)

Hospitals would get a 2.6% pay increase in fiscal 2025 under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule released Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The reimbursement boost, which the agency projects would be a $3.2 billion pay bump, is down from the 2.8% pay hike in fiscal 2024. The American Hospital Association, along with other hospital associations, said the proposed pay rates aren't enough to combat inflation. (Kacik, 4/10)

Health insurers, physicians and accountable care organizations issued recommendations Wednesday outlining what they see as the best ways to boost value-based care initiatives. The report from the health insurance trade group AHIP, the American Medical Association and the National Association of ACOs focuses on total-cost-of-care contracts, ACOs that typically span three to five years and have demonstrated success improving quality and reducing costs, according to the organizations. (Tepper, 4/10)

Costs for home healthcare for the elderly and bed-ridden have gone up by 14.2 percent over the past year, according to new Consumer Price Index data released Wednesday.  That represents the largest percent increase in home healthcare costs during a 12-month period since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting data on such costs in 2005.  The United States has an aging population, and the need for care among the nation’s roughly 73 million Baby Boomers is driving up the cost of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and home healthcare.  (O'Connell-Domenech, 4/10)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: After Uphill Battle, Company Is Poised For Takeover Of Bankrupt California Hospital

When American Advanced Management made a bid for the bankrupt Madera Community Hospital last year, many local officials and others involved in trying to reopen the facility didn’t take the company seriously. The 11-year-old firm, based in Modesto, was already running a handful of small, rural hospitals, but Madera had far larger and more prestigious suitors, including Trinity Health and then Adventist Health. (Montalvo and Wolfson, 4/11)

Sanford Health has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Great Plains Women's Health Center in Williston, North Dakota. The Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based rural health system said in a Tuesday news release it intends to continue offering reproductive healthcare services at the facility and eventually add primary care and cardiology, orthopedics, pediatrics and plastic surgery services. (DeSilva, 4/10)

Prime Healthcare finalized its $350 million acquisition of five New Jersey and California hospitals from Medical Properties Trust. The purchase agreement, announced in February, consists of $250 million in cash and a $100 million interest-bearing mortgage note due to the real estate investment trust in nine months, according to a news release issued April 9. The hospitals include Saint Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, California, and four Saint Clare’s Health facilities in New Jersey. (Kacik, 4/10)

In a rigorous assessment of over 4,500 adult hospitals, U.S. News & World Report recognized MemorialCare’s Long Beach Medical Center as one of the top 50 best U.S. hospitals in orthopedics. In addition, the medical center scored high performance rankings for hip replacement, hip fracture and knee replacement. (4/10)

Providers are seeing some improvements following the Change Healthcare cyberattack nearly two months ago, but not necessarily because they are reconnecting to restored systems. Hospitals and medical groups are submitting claims to payers through alternate vendors, allowing them to generate cash. But the level of claims and payments moving among healthcare organizations that had heavily relied on Change Healthcare is still far from normal. (Berryman, 4/10)

A far-reaching new privacy bill could have major implications for how healthcare providers, insurance companies and third parties handle and utilize sensitive data. While the bipartisan American Privacy Rights Act of 2024 is not specific to the healthcare industry, a number of its proposed policies would impact how healthcare companies do business. (McAuliff, 4/10)

In a move that officials touted as the most significant increase in American gun regulation in decades, the Justice Department has finalized rules to close a loophole that allowed people to sell firearms online, at gun shows and at other informal venues without conducting background checks on those who purchase them. Vice President Harris and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland celebrated the rules and said they would keep firearms out of the hands of potentially violent people who are not legally allowed to own guns. (Stein, 4/11)

The shooting of an elementary teacher by a 6-year-old student in Newport News, Va., last year was preceded by a “shocking” series of lapses by the school’s assistant principal at the time, according to a report by a special grand jury that was released on Wednesday. Despite having been told that same day that the student was “in a violent mood,” and having received several reports that he was carrying a firearm, the assistant principal turned down a school counselor’s request for permission to search the student, the grand jury said in its report. (Schwartz, 4/10)

New legal approaches and laws are widening the scope of accountability for those who not only pull triggers, but also for educators, parents and others who fail to report red flags. Prosecutors and lawmakers are increasingly taking aim at people who could have taken steps before innocent victims were maimed or killed. "As far as I know, this is really groundbreaking," said James Ellenson, a lawyer for Deja Taylor, the mother of the 6-year-old boy who shot his teacher in Virginia, speaking about the criminal charges against the school official in the case. A special grand jury released a report Wednesday outlining failures by the school administration. (Jimenez, Trethan and Nguyen, 3/11)

Activist groups are using a typical advocacy tool — voicemails to members of Congress — with a new, uncomfortable twist: They’re from the deceased victims of gun violence, generated by artificial intelligence. TheShotline.org, a gun reform campaign by March for Our Lives and Change the REF, is asking constituents nationwide to send representatives in their zip code the AI-generated phone calls. ... “I want these politicians to sit there and listen,” said Brett Cross, a father of one of the victims featured on Shotline.org, “I want them to imagine that that's their children's voices, because they didn't do anything to prevent countless children being slaughtered.” (Padilla, 4/9)

Suicide rates among people of all ages in the United States have increased over the past two decades, making it a serious public health problem. Among US college athletes, suicide is now the second leading cause of death after accidents — and rates have doubled from 7.6% to 15.3% over the past 20 years, according to a study published April 4 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. (Rogers, 4/10)

Human brains are gradually getting bigger, decade by decade, potentially lowering people’s risk of developing age-related dementia, according to a recent study published by Alzheimer’s researchers at UC Davis Health. People born in the 1970s have more brain volume and more brain surface area than people born in the 1930s, according to the study, published March 25 in JAMA Neurology. (Ho, 4/10)

A federal appeals court will hear arguments Thursday over Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming care for minors, as the fight over the restrictions on transgender youths adopted by two dozen states moves closer to the U.S. Supreme Court. Arkansas is appealing a federal judge’s ruling last year that struck down the state’s ban as unconstitutional, the first decision to overturn such a prohibition. The 2021 law would prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18. (DeMillo, 4/11)

Mississippi, one of the country's poorest and least healthy states, could soon become the next to expand Medicaid. It's one of several GOP-dominated states that have seriously discussed Medicaid expansion this year, a sign that opposition to the Affordable Care Act coverage program may be softening among some holdouts 10 years after it became available. (Goldman, 4/11)

An effort is being rolled out in New York City to address prostate cancer rates. Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer for men in the United States with about 1 in 8 being diagnosed in their lifetime. While grabbing groceries at Food Bank for New York City in Harlem, Glendon Cooper got even more than he came for; within minutes, he was in the hands of health care workers, getting screened for prostate cancer in the Mount Sinai Robert F. Smith Mobile Prostate Cancer Screening Unit. (DeAngelis, 4/10)

Black and Indigenous pregnant Minnesotans have long faced more health disparities than their white counterparts. Now, there’s a push at the Legislature to change that. DFL Sen. Mary Kunesh — who is the first Indigenous Minnesotan elected to the state Senate — is sponsoring a pair of bills to reduce harmful birthing experiences and help Black and Indigenous parents heal from past traumas. (Olson and Stockton, 4/10)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Arkansas Led The Nation In Measuring Obesity In Kids. Did It Help?

Sixth-grade boys were lining up to be measured in the Mann Arts and Science Magnet Middle School library. As they took off their shoes and emptied their pockets, they joked about being the tallest. “It’s an advantage,” said one. “You can play basketball,” said another. “A taller dude can get more girls!” a third student offered. Everyone laughed. What they didn’t joke about was their weight. (Cardoza, 4/11)

Many Republicans across the country have long dismissed public health initiatives as “nanny state” overreach, with the coronavirus pandemic only further politicizing government’s efforts to save lives. But one GOP governor — Ohio’s Mike DeWine — says he’s hit on a strategy to get conservative lawmakers and taxpayers to pay attention: focus on the children. (Weber, 4/10)

Researchers showed that AI assistance potentially could improve breast-cancer screening by reducing the number of false positives without missing true positives. (Washington University School of Medicine, 4/10)

New research sheds light on the significance of the glucocorticoid receptor in drug-resistant prostate cancer, showing that the development of drug resistance could be prevented by limiting the activity of coregulator proteins. (University of Eastern Finland, 4/10)

A new study details dramatically lower confidence in COVID-19 vaccine safety in pregnant and recently pregnant women in 2023 compared to 2021, despite evidence to the contrary, according to findings published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. (Soucheray, 4/9)

A potential antibiotic-sparing strategy for women with recurrent urinary tract infections (rUTIs) failed to move the needle in a randomized controlled trial, British researchers reported yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine. The food supplement D-mannose is a simple sugar found in many fruits and vegetables that has shown potential efficacy in preventing UTIs in animal models and some clinical studies. Researchers have suspected D-mannose might work by preventing bacteria from adhering to the walls of the urinary tract and could be an alternative to daily prophylactic (preventive) antibiotics, a common approach that comes with the risk of adverse effects and subsequent drug-resistant UTIs. (Dall, 4/9)

A new study released ahead of the upcoming European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Barcelona, Spain, shows that transmission of pneumococcus was highest among older adults who had frequent contact with preschoolers and young school-aged children. (Dall, 4/4)

Safety-net hospitals and clinics care for a population heavily skewed toward the poor, recent immigrants and people of color. The budgets of these places are forever tight. And anyone who works in them could tell you that illness in our patients isn’t just a biological phenomenon. It’s the manifestation of social inequality in people’s bodies. (Lindsay Ryan, 4/11)

We parents have become so frantic, hypervigilant and borderline obsessive about our kids’ mental health that we routinely allow all manner of mental health experts to evict us from the room. (“We will let you know.”) We’ve been relying on them for decades to tell us how to raise well-adjusted kids. Maybe we were overcompensating for the fact that our own parents had assumed the opposite: That psychologists were the last people you should consult on how to raise normal kids. (Abigail Shrier, 4/11)

When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban, some 50 years moribund, sprung back to life, shutting down Planned Parenthood’s clinics for more than a year. Arizona’s 1864 ban similarly wrought horror-movie havoc after Dobbs; no one knew whether it or a more recent, less restrictive ban took precedence. As the Arizona Supreme Court just decided: the zombie lives. (Kate Cohen, 4/10)

On March 20, the Republican Study Committee, a voluntary body that includes 80 percent of the Republican House Caucus — including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. — released its budget plan for fiscal year 2025. This release deservedly received a lot of media attention based on its plan to raise the Social Security retirement age, adopt an extreme national abortion ban, and “voucherize” Medicare. Each of these actions piles more costs and burdens onto middle-class Americans and codifies draconian restrictions on the privacy rights of women and families to make reproductive health care decisions. (Rep. Joe Courtney, 4/10)

It’s no surprise in today’s corrosive political environment that trust in government is near an all-time low. That’s a big problem. Communities with more trust during the Covid-19 pandemic had fewer deaths and less economic devastation. (Tom Frieden, 4/11)