Blog | 3/7/2025

Trump Administration Healthcare News: March 7, 2025

Health Advances weekly healthcare tracker focused on top level government administration news.

NOTE: All words/analysis are those from the source noted, opinions are those of the original authors and not reflective of Health Advances in general nor any individual. All sources are non-confidential and in the public domain (but some may be behind paywalls).

This issue reflects news as of 11 AM on March 6, 2025. The details and broad themes may have changed.

KEY HEALTH NEWS (Global & US & EOs)

KFF Analysis: The Trump Administration’s Foreign Aid Freeze and Global Health: The Biggest Gaps Left on the Donor Landscape

  • With the Trump administration instituting a foreign aid freeze, including a stop-work order, cancelling the vast majority of foreign aid grants and contracts, and moving to dismantle USAID, U.S. global health programs have been effectively shuttered.

A recent analysis from the Center for Global Development identified countries most vulnerable to these cuts, including:

  • The U.S. government was the single largest donor to health in low- and middle-income countries over the 2021-2023 period. 
  • For HIV, the U.S. provided almost two-thirds of all donor support (63% or $5.2 billion per year) over the 2021-2023, making this area of health especially vulnerable to U.S. cuts. 
  • Some countries would be disproportionately affected by U.S. cuts in health aid, compared to others. Whereas the U.S. provided 30% of direct health assistance per year during the 2021-2023 period, it provided 50% or more of health assistance in 11 countries, including several low or lower-middle-income countries (Eswatini, Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, and Zambia.
  • https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/the-trump-administrations-foreign-aid-freeze-and-global-health-the-biggest-gaps-left-on-the-donor-landscape/

KFF Health Tracking Poll February 2025: The Public’s Views on Global Health and USAID

  • As the Trump administration takes steps to dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and freeze most foreign aid, including global health funding, the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll finds that a majority of the public expect this will lead to increased humanitarian and health crises globally while somewhat fewer expect the move to alleviate domestic fiscal issues.
  • At least six in ten adults say that getting rid of USAID is likely to lead to more illness and death in low-income countries (67%) or more humanitarian crises around the world (62%).
  • On the other hand, smaller shares – but still close to half – say getting rid of USAID will likely allow funds to be redirected to domestic programs (47%) or significantly reduce the U.S. budget deficit (47%).
  • Partisans are strongly divided on the impacts of cutting USAID, with Democrats more likely to anticipate negative health and humanitarian consequences globally and Republicans more likely to expect positive fiscal outcomes at home.
  • https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-february-2025-the-publics-views-on-global-health-and-usaid/

House Approves Legislation Expanding Access to Chronic Disease Treatments

  • New legislation advanced by a voice vote March 4 would codify 14 pre-deductible healthcare services through high-deductible health plans (HDHPs).
  • It codifies guidance from President Donald Trump’s first term increasing flexible coverage options for HDHPs. The bill would allow medical products and services like beta-blockers, blood pressure monitors, glucometers, inhalers and cholesterol drugs to be more easily covered by insurance by letting insurers pay for low-cost services before a deductible is reached.
  • “This legislation provides employers and their employees with greater flexibility to design healthcare coverage options that expand access to treatments for chronic diseases,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Missouri, in a statement on the House floor. “By providing flexible coverage options for more people living with chronic health conditions, we can help lower their costs and improve their health and well-being.”
  • Press: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/house-passes-chronic-disease-flexibility-act-expand-coverage-under-high-deductible-health
  • From the house: https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2025/03/04/house-approves-legislation-expanding-access-to-chronic-disease-treatments/

CMS rescinds Medicaid's health-related social needs guidance

  • The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has pulled information on health equity for the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through Section 1115 waivers.
  • It is the latest signal that the Trump administration views social determinants of health (SDOH) and the idea of health equity radically different than the Biden administration, which viewed access for all as a cornerstone of its health policy agenda. The Trump administration has taken a systematic approach at terminating diversity, equity and inclusive initiatives, which increasingly expands into banning policy through a health equity lens.
  • https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/cms-rescinds-medicaid-health-related-social-needs-guidance

US judge bars Trump administration from cutting NIH research funding

  • A U.S. judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump's administration from carrying out steep cuts to federal grant funding for research that universities and Democratic-led states warn would lead to layoffs, lab closures and a curtailment of scientific and medical studies.
  • U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston issued a nationwide injunction, opens new tab at the request of 22 Democratic state attorneys general, medical associations and universities that argue the National Institutes of Health's planned funding cuts were unlawful.
  • Kelley, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, noted that the policy affects thousands of existing grants, totaling billions of dollars across all 50 states, calling it "a unilateral change over a weekend, without regard for on-going research and clinical trials."
  • This created an "imminent risk of halting life-saving clinical trials, disrupting the development of innovative medical research and treatment, and shuttering of research facilities, without regard for current patient care," she added.
  • https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-judge-bars-trump-administration-cutting-nih-research-funding-2025-03-05/

RFK Jr changes stance on measles outbreak as virus spreads

  • Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has shifted his stance on the US measles outbreak, now calling it "serious" after previously describing it as "not unusual".
  • The outbreak has sickened over 140 children in western Texas, while several other states also are battling cases.
  • Last week, Kennedy - who has spread misinformation about childhood vaccinations - faced a backlash from public health experts after he appeared to minimize the outbreak, which killed an unvaccinated six-year-old for the first time in a decade.
  • During his first public appearance in the Oval Office last week, after the first measles death was announced, Kennedy told reporters the US has measles outbreaks "every year".
  • But in an essay published on Fox News on Sunday, he struck a different tone, calling the outbreak a "top priority". Kennedy encouraged parents to talk to their doctors about vaccinations against measles. He noted the vaccines "not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons".
  • News: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99n18zlzg3o
  • HHS Press Release: Outbreak is Call to Action for All of Us: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2025/03/03/measles-outbreak-call-to-action-for-all-of-us.html

RFK Jr. moves to eliminate public comment on HHS decisions

  • Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a document Friday proposing to strip public participation from much of the business his department conducts. The move comes during a time of major upheaval across federal health agencies, and as the public waits to see how Kennedy will enact his pledge of “radical transparency” at the department.
  • The statement, placed in the Federal Register, said HHS would rescind its longtime practice of giving members of the public a chance to comment on the agency’s plans. It is set to be formally published in the register on Monday, March 3.
  • https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/28/rfk-jr-eliminating-public-comment-hhs-decisions-richardson-waiver/  (may require a subscription for full-text article)
  • Link to FR document: https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-03300.pdf

Trump Vowed To End Surprise Medical Bills. The Office Working on That Just Got Slashed.

  • As President Donald Trump wrapped up his first term in 2020, he signed legislation to protect Americans from surprise medical bills. “This must end,” Trump said. “We’re going to hold insurance companies and hospitals totally accountable.”
  • But the president’s wide-ranging push to slash government spending, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is weakening the federal office charged with implementing the No Surprises Act.
  • Some 15% of those working at the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, or CCIIO, were fired two weeks ago, according to the agency’s former deputy director in charge of operations, Jeff Grant.
  • And while the full impact of the cutbacks is still coming into focus, the retrenchment is threatening work at an agency already laboring to run an overstretched system for resolving sometimes very large bills from out-of-network medical providers.
  • https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-surprise-medical-bills-agency-responsible-job-cuts-doge/

Interrupted access to unique maternal health database rattles researchers

  • For nearly four decades, researchers have leaned heavily on a unique annual survey to understand the state of infant and maternal health in the United States.
  • Called PRAMS, the dataset includes a richer variety of information about the life circumstances of newborns and their parents than birth certificates, providing insight into the causes of the higher rates of maternal mortality in the U.S. than in other developed countries. So researchers were distressed in recent weeks when they suddenly discovered they were locked out of the database, without any notice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And state health departments, which administer the survey, were told by the CDC to cease data collection.
  • The CDC told STAT on Friday that the interruption is temporary, and was the result of needing to make the survey compliant with some of President Trump’s executive orders. “PRAMS was not shut down,” Paul Prince, a spokesperson for the CDC, said in an email. “There were some schedule adjustments to ensure compliance with the Trump Administration’s Executive Orders, but these changes do not affect the continuation of the program.”

Republicans need to cut Medicaid to hit budget savings target, CBO finds

  • Republicans can’t achieve their goal of slashing $2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade without cutting Medicaid, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
  • In a report released Wednesday, CBO found that the government spends $381 billion on programs other than Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that are under the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee. 
  • That’s a problem for House Republicans, who are looking to slash $880 billion from programs in the committee’s jurisdiction to help pay for an extension of President Trump’s tax cuts and border enforcement funding. 
  • One of the prime targets is Medicaid, the joint federal and state-funded program that provides health coverage to more than 72 million low-income Americans. Republicans see Medicaid as a program rife with fraud and abuse and have long sought to rein in its spending. 
  • CBO said that of the $381 billion, more than half is already paid for. So even if Republicans eliminate every program under Energy and Commerce other than Medicaid and CHIP, it would only be able to save a maximum of $135 billion. 
  • Press: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5178944-republicans-medicaid-trump-tax-cuts-cbo-finds/
  • CBO press: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61235

KEY BIOPHARMA NEWS

DOGE terminates leases for 30 FDA sites across 23 states

  • The Department of Government Efficiency says that it has terminated the leases of 30 FDA offices and buildings, including a 52,000 square-foot St. Louis-based lab that operates under the FDA’s Office of Pharmaceutical Quality.
  • The lease terminations are some of the first indications that the FDA’s drug and biologics centers won’t be entirely spared by the Elon Musk-directed cuts, which have already hit the FDA’s device center.
  • It wasn’t immediately clear when any of DOGE’s claimed lease terminations might take effect. It also wasn’t known whether FDA staff and functions at those sites would leave the agency, or would — or could — be moved elsewhere, including some of the FDA’s other offices in the St. Louis area.
  • The St. Louis lab employs about 70 scientists and another 10 researchers and research fellows, according to a scientist at the lab
  • https://endpts.com/doge-shutters-lease-on-fda-lab-in-st-louis-and-29-other-sites/

Trump administration reverses lease termination for major FDA quality lab in St. Louis

  • Two days after announcing plans to shut down an FDA lab devoted to ensuring the US drug supply remains safe and potent, the Trump administration has changed plans and will leave the lab open, Endpoints News has learned.
  • The St. Louis lab, known as the Office of Testing and Research, is one of the drug agency’s most important facilities for ensuring drugs are of high quality. In addition to its day-to-day work, the lab has been called in to investigate high-profile drug safety issues.
  • The lab was one of about 30 FDA facilities whose leases were marked for termination by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which has been charged with slashing government spending but has sometimes had to reverse course on its actions when it has taken steps to shut down critical government functions.
  • https://endpts.com/trump-administration-reverses-course-on-fda-drug-quality-lab-closure/

Pharmalittle: We’re reading about Pfizer navigating tariffs

  • Pfizer chief executive officer Albert Bourla said the drugmaker might move overseas manufacturing to its existing plants in the U.S., if required, as the Trump administration threatens numerous tariffs on imported goods, Reuters tells us.
  • His comments come as drugmakers brace for the possibility of a 25% tariff on pharmaceutical imports.
  • A company with an existing manufacturing network in the U.S. will fare better if there is a need to transfer production to the country to avoid tariffs, Bourla said at the TD Cowen healthcare conference.
  • https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2025/03/04/gilead-pfizer-trump-tariffs-fda-makary-china-illumina-canada-medicare-pollution-obesity/

Novo Nordisk CEO warns of drug shortages and price hikes in US

  • Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO, Novo Nordisk on Thursday revealed that that Novo Nordisk is one of the biggest investors in the United States and these tariffs can harm the American patients especially with respect to generic medicines.
  • “So I would say, in general on pricing, because I can’t comment specifically on our pricing, but if you look at by far the largest drug category is generic medicines and many of those are sourced from overseas. So the API comes from overseas because the capacity is not available in The US. These are huge volumes at very low price. And if you put tariffs on those…it will either lead to shortage of medicine or increased pricing in general,” he highlighted.
  • https://www.financialexpress.com/business/healthcare-novo-nordisk-ceo-warns-of-drug-shortages-and-price-hikes-in-us-3769511/?ref=latest_hp

KEY DIAGNOSTICS – LIFE SCIENCE RESEARCH NEWS

China to ban Illumina's DNA sequencers following US tariffs

  • China will ban the import of DNA sequencers from San Diego-based Illumina, an apparent response to additional US tariffs.
  • Last month, the Chinese government placed Illumina on an “unreliable entities” list, following initial 10% tariffs from President Donald Trump on China. On Tuesday, China announced the import ban shortly after the administration’s additional 10% tariff on Chinese products went into effect.
  • The move does not ban Illumina from operating in China, Illumina said.
  • “The company is assessing today’s announcement to fully understand the impact on our operations in China,” the sequencing giant said in a statement. “Illumina will continue to serve our customers in China, supporting the important work they are doing to improve human health.”
  • https://endpts.com/china-to-ban-illuminas-dna-sequencers-following-us-tariffs/

KEY HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (HIT) NEWS

Sitting Atop a Telehealth Cliff?

  • Without passing additional legislation, current Medicare telehealth flexibilities will expire on March 31, 2025.
  • If this happens, millions of beneficiaries who have used telehealth as a means for receiving needed and often critical health care services, especially since 2020, will lose coverage for this benefit starting on April 1, 2025. This will mean, with limited exceptions, that Medicare beneficiaries will have to travel to a health care provider’s office or a health care facility to receive most telehealth services.
  • Unlike the other extensions, the bill (the American Relief Act, 2025 or “Act”) only created a 90-day extension for the Medicare telehealth flexibilities, through the end of March 2025.
  • https://natlawreview.com/article/sitting-atop-telehealth-cliff

HIMSS25: Healthcare in a 'shaky period of uncertainty' under Trump, HIMSS CEO says

  • During an opening keynote for the 2025 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Global Health Conference & Exhibition, the organization's CEO, Harold Wolf, said HIMSS is bracing to support the healthcare industry, which may struggle with cash flow issues amid President Donald Trump's cuts to federal programs.
  • Wolf said the industry is living in “a shaky period of uncertainty” because of the disruption to the federal government so far under Trump and the changes the industry expects to come, like slashing Medicaid. HIMSS is preparing for multiple scenarios and degrees of change that could stem from disruption in Washington, D.C.
  • https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/himss-2025

KEY MEDTECH NEWS

Manufacturers report price increases and other tariff troubles

  • U.S. manufacturers say they’re already feeling squeezed by looming import taxes, according to the latest Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Business Survey.
  • Medical device manufacturers like Medtronic and Intuitive have offered few details about how they plan to respond to new import taxes imposed by President Donald Trump, who said new tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China will soon take effect.
  • The survey — which includes manufacturers of medical equipment and their suppliers among manufacturers of machinery, electronics and chemicals — indicated manufacturers broadly are experiencing the “first operational shock of the new administration’s tariff policy.”
  • “Prices growth accelerated due to tariffs, causing new order placement backlogs, supplier delivery stoppages and manufacturing inventory impacts,” Manufacturing Business Survey Committee Chair Timothy Fiore said in the report. “Although tariffs do not go into force until mid-March, spot commodity prices have already risen about 20 percent.”
  • https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com/manufacturers-suppliers-price-increases-tariff-troubles/

KEY ACRONYMS

  • ACA = Affordable Care Act
  • CDRH = Center for Devices and Radiological Health
  • CMS = Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • DOGE = Department of Government Efficiency
  • EO = Executive Order
  • FDA = Food and Drug Administration
  • HDHP = high-deductible health plans
  • HHS = Department of Health and Human Services
  • OIRA = Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
  • OMB = Office of Management and Budget
  • OCED = Organisation of Economic Development
  • UNRWA = United Nations Relief and Works Agency
  • USAID = U.S. Agency for International Development
  • WHO = World Health Organization

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