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FACT CHECK: Senate Republicans Are Planning to Gut Medicaid

New reports indicate that Senate Republicans are advancing a budget bill this week, bringing them closer to achieving their goal of implementing Trump’s scheme to gut Medicaid and hand out tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations.

No matter what Senate Republicans may claim, the truth is that their budget paves the way for severe cuts to Medicaid. Per Politico: “The Senate won’t alter the House’s instructions to its own committees, including leaving untouched the House GOP plans for the Energy and Commerce Committee to slash $880 billion from its jurisdiction.” According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, these cuts will lead to drastic cuts to Medicaid. By adopting the rules and funding cuts laid out in House Republicans’ budget plan, Senate Republicans are endorsing the House GOP’s plan and greenlighting massive cuts to Medicaid which will rip health care away from millions of Americans just to fund tax breaks for the rich. Here’s the truth:

This Is Clearly Another Scheme To Take Health Care Away From Working People, Seniors, Veterans, And Children To Give Tax Breaks To The Rich. As the Georgetown Center for Children and Families found, Republicans’ math does not add up. The CBO confirmed that Republicans cannot make their proposed $880 billion in cuts without drastically cutting Medicaid and throwing millions of hardworking families off their coverage, closing rural hospitals, and kicking seniors out of nursing homes.

Medicaid Is Extremely Popular And Voters Will Hold Republicans Accountable For Ripping It Away From Their Loved Ones and Neighbors. Recent polling found that 71 percent of voters who backed Trump say cutting Medicaid would be unacceptable. Republicans are making a grave mistake by assuming the voters who supported them, many of whom rely on Medicaid, are not smart enough to see through their lies.

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Trump’s War on Health Care: Public Health Watch

In the Words of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, “Our Worst Fears About Mr. Kennedy Are Coming True.”

Welcome to Public Health Watch, a weekly roundup from Protect Our Care tracking catastrophic activity as part of Donald Trump’s sweeping war on health care. From installing anti-vaccine zealot RFK Jr. as Secretary of HHS to empowering Elon Musk to make indiscriminate cuts to our public health infrastructure, including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, Donald Trump is endangering the lives of millions of Americans. Protect Our Care’s Public Health Watch will shine a spotlight on the worst of the Trump/RFK/Musk war on vaccines, science and public health and serve as a resource for the press, public and advocacy groups to hold them accountable.

What’s Happening In Public Health?

Catastrophic Cuts Are Creating Chaos And Endangering Americans’ Health And Scientific Innovation

Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr. Plans 10,000 Job Cuts in Major Restructuring of Health Department Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to significantly cut the size of the department he leads, reshaping the nation’s health agencies and closing regional offices, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more. The worker cuts are in addition to roughly 10,000 employees who opted to leave the department since President Trump took office, through voluntary separation offers, according to the documents. The voluntary departures and the plan, if fully implemented, would result in the department shedding about one-quarter of its workforce, shrinking to 62,000 federal health workers. It will also lose five of its 10 regional offices. The documents viewed by the Journal say essential health services won’t be affected.

Politico: RFK Jr.’s massive cuts stun staff, leave senior employees scrambling Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s move to gut and reorganize the federal health department shocked many people tasked with making it happen, and left others fearful that everything from the safety of the nation’s drug supply to disease response could be at risk. The disaster preparedness agency in the Department of Health and Human Services has just two days to prepare a plan to fold itself into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an HHS official, granted anonymity for fear of retribution. Health staffers entrusted with regulating prescription drugs, managing public health programs and conducting scientific research were blindsided by the cuts, with many learning the details from a Wall Street Journal story published early on Thursday, several people familiar with the matter said. “There’s very few people who actually know what’s happening,” said one health official granted anonymity to describe the internal reaction. House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) also said he learned of the cuts from news reports. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the committee that oversees the health department, found out from Kennedy during a breakfast Thursday just before the news broke. The hushed-and-hurried nature of Thursday’s announcement, which called for terminating 10,000 workers, the elimination of departments and the closure of regional offices, underscores how Kennedy as health secretary intends to impose his singular vision on a department he has chided as a bloated bureaucracy that has lost its way.

New York Times: Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu. State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately.

Stat: State and local health departments grapple with flurry of cuts from D.C.

New York Times: H.H.S. Scraps Studies of Vaccines and Treatments for Future Pandemics The Trump administration has canceled funding for dozens of studies seeking new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 and other pathogens that may cause future pandemics. The government’s rationale is that the Covid pandemic has ended, which “provides cause to terminate Covid-related grant funds,” according to an internal N.I.H. document viewed by The New York Times. But the research was not just about Covid. Nine of the terminated awards funded centers conducting research on antiviral drugs to combat so-called priority pathogens that could give rise to entirely new pandemics. “This includes the antiviral projects designed to cover a wide range of families that could cause outbreaks or pandemics,” said one senior N.I.H. official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The vaccine research also was not focused on Covid, but rather on other coronaviruses that one day might jump from animals to humans.

Stat: Cancer research, long protected, feels ‘devastating’ effects under Trump For decades, cancer held a near-sacred spot in the American biomedical enterprise, commanding the lion’s share of research dollars and support from both Democrats and Republicans. Now, not even cancer is protected from political change. More than a dozen people in the cancer field — including researchers, clinicians, policy experts, advocates, and patients — told STAT that government and congressional actions since President Trump’s inauguration are threatening treatment for cancer patients and the development of new therapies or cures. As they faced what felt to them like a bombardment of cuts, delays, and policy changes to science, the word members of the cancer community used over and over to describe the changes was “devastating.”

New York Times: ‘Chaos and Confusion’ at the Crown Jewel of American Science A week after Donald J. Trump was inaugurated, a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health was preparing to give an invited talk at a scientific meeting when an urgent call came in from an administrative assistant. There is a total communications ban, the scientist was told, and you cannot give the speech. As soon as the scientist got back to the office, another ban went into effect — one that prohibited researchers from submitting papers to journals for publication. Seven senior investigators working in different parts of the National Institutes of Health described rules put in place on orders from the Department of Government Efficiency that risk hampering and undermining American medical science. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared for their jobs for speaking publicly. One said that DOGE had begun a reign of “chaos and confusion.” The scientists warned that it had the potential to seriously weaken the N.I.H. — the crown jewel of American science, with a vast network of thousands of researchers in 27 centers dedicated to treating disease, improving health and funding medical research.

Stat: Hours after NIH director confirmed, the agency tackles one of his priorities — ending ‘censorship’ in science In October, Jay Bhattacharya, then a health economist at Stanford University, posted on X: “If you favor government control of misinformation, you are an enemy of free speech.” On Wednesday, on the morning after his confirmation as director of the National Institutes of Health, the agency directed staff to compile a list of grants and contracts related to “fighting misinformation or disinformation” — a step that in recent weeks has preceded the termination of research funding in areas that run counter to the Trump administration’s priorities. The early morning email, marked “URGENT,” asked contracting officers at the NIH to respond by “noon today” with information on any contract that “may be related to any form of censorship at all or directing people to believe one idea over another related to health outcomes.” It goes on to list examples including contracts to promote vaccine uptake, or public health messages about the “dangers of Covid or not wearing masks.” Staff were also instructed to search for keywords such as media literacy, social media, social distancing, and lockdown. “This should address any contract that could be used to ‘censor Americans,’” the email concluded.

Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Plans to Freeze Family-Planning Grants The Trump administration is moving to freeze tens of millions of dollars in federal family-planning grants to certain organizations while it investigates whether the money was used for diversity efforts, people familiar with the matter said. The Health and Human Services Department is weighing an immediate freeze of $27.5 million in grants, an agency spokesman said after The Wall Street Journal reported the plans. The groups that would be subject to the freeze include Planned Parenthood affiliates, the people familiar with the matter said. Altogether, the groups were set to get a total of about $120 million this year. The freeze, which could be made public as soon as this week, would suspend funding meant to support, in the U.S., pregnancy testing, provision of contraception, treatment of sexually transmitted infections and evaluation and counseling for infertility. An HHS spokesman said the department was reviewing grant recipients to make sure they comply with President Trump’s executive orders and federal law.

New York Times: U.S. to End Vaccine Funds for Poor Countries The Trump administration intends to terminate the United States’ financial support for Gavi, the organization that has helped purchase critical vaccines for children in developing countries, saving millions of lives over the past quarter century, and to significantly scale back support for efforts to combat malaria, one of the biggest killers globally. The administration has decided to continue some key grants for medications to treat H.I.V. and tuberculosis, and food aid to countries facing civil wars and natural disasters. Those decisions are included in a 281-page spreadsheet that the United States Agency for International Development sent to Congress Monday night, listing the foreign aid projects it plans to continue and to terminate. The New York Times obtained a copy of the spreadsheet and other documents describing the plans.

Politico: Long Covid office ‘will be closing,’ Trump administration announces The Trump administration is shuttering HHS’ long Covid office as part of its reorganization, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO. The email was sent Monday by Ian Simon, the head of the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice. It said the closing is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ reorganization. The office’s handful of staff were not told whether they would remain employed in the federal government or whether the office would close immediately or wind down operations over time.

ProPublica: NIH Ends Future Funding to Study the Health Effects of Climate Change The National Institutes of Health will no longer be funding work on the health effects of climate change, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica. The guidance, which was distributed to several staffers last week, comes on the back of multiple new directives to cut off NIH funding to grants that are focused on subjects that are viewed as conflicting with the Trump administration’s priorities, such as gender identity, LGBTQ+ issues, vaccine hesitancy, and diversity, equity and inclusion. While it’s unclear whether the climate guidance will impact active grants and lead to funding terminations, the directive appears to halt opportunities for future funding of studies or academic programs focused on the health effects of climate change.

Chaotic Firings and Re-Hirings:

Cruel and Destructive Policy Changes:

Associated Press: Trump administration cancels at least 68 grants focused on LGBTQ health questions
The Atlantic: The NIH’s Most Reckless Cuts Yet
The Bulwark: The NIH Moves to Stop Studying Vaccine Skepticism
HuffPost: Trump Pulls Research Funding To Protect Pregnant Women From Domestic Violence, Citing ‘DEI’
HuffPost: The Trump Administration Is Quietly Trying To Gut Important ACA Protections For Trans Americans
Law360: HHS To Share Immigration Status Of Migrant Kid Sponsors
Marketwatch: Agency for older adults and people with disabilities to be shuttered under HHS cuts
Mother Jones: RFK Jr. Moves to Close Administration For Community Living
Mother Jones: Domestic Violence and Maternal Mortality Are Rising. The NIH Just Defunded a Project to Study Both.
The 19th: What happens to health research when ‘women’ is a banned word?
NOTUS: HHS Pulled Funds for HIV Research at 22 Universities
Politico: HHS is killing offices devoted to improving minority health and tackling HIV
Politico: Trump administration claws back $1 billion in mental health, substance use treatment funding
Stat: NIH cuts halt 24-year program to prevent HIV/AIDS in adolescents and young adults

RFK Jr. Is An Extreme MAGA Anti-Vaxxer Who’s Breaking His “Assurances” To Key Republicans To Get Confirmed

Washington Post: RFK Jr. forces out Peter Marks, FDA’s top vaccine scientist The Trump administration on Friday pushed out Peter Marks, the nation’s top vaccine regulator and an architect of the U.S. program to rapidly develop coronavirus vaccines, a move that comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues his overhaul of the nation’s health and science agencies amid a worsening U.S. outbreak of measles. Marks, who joined the Food and Drug Administration in 2012 and had overseen its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since 2016, was offered the choice to resign or be fired, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation. He opted to resign, with an effective departure date of April 5. Marks is leaving his post with a “heavy heart,” he wrote in his resignation letter Friday, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The longtime regulator wrote that he was particularly worried about the measles outbreak in Texas, which “reminds us of what happens when confidence in well-established science underlying public health and well-being is undermined.”

Stat: Ouster of FDA’s Peter Marks alarms a biopharma industry that saw him as an ally

The Daily Beast: RFK Jr. Says He’s ‘Having Fun’ on Day He Axes 10k Jobs Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was “having fun” on the same day he announced the Department of Health and Human Services would cut 10,000 jobs. The remark came as health workers across the country were reeling from the shock of learning that they could be losing their livelihoods. In a video announcing the job losses, Kennedy said there would be a “painful period” ahead and slammed the department he runs as a “sprawling bureaucracy.” “I want to promise you now that we’re going to do more with less,” he said. However, when Kennedy met podcaster Drew Pinsky, known as “Dr Drew,” in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, he seemed to be in good spirits. Pinsky was one of a group of podcasters invited to the White House by President Donald Trump. Later, he broadcast live from the Capitol and told his guest, right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec, that he had met Kennedy. Pinsky said he asked how Kennedy was doing after he “pulled him aside.” “He said one thing to me that made me enthusiastic,” the podcast host added. He said Kennedy told him: “I’m having fun.” “That’s what I wanted to hear,” Pinsky said.

Mediate: Trump’s Budget Director Hails ‘Fantastic’ Layoffs of 10,000 More Federal Employees: ‘It’s Really Exciting’ Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, gushed over the mass layoffs announced by the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday. Vought – co-author of Project 2025, which Trump distanced himself from on the campaign trail – appeared on Thursday’s Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss. “That’s a big piece of change from the DOGE brothers,” host Larry Kudlow observed after noting that 10,000 more federal workers would be fired. “No, it’s fantastic,” Vought replied. “I talked with Secretary Kennedy about an hour ago, and he is really excited about what they’ve unveiled today, the extent to which they’ve [reorganized] the department, the number of people that they’re able to let go, and be able to find efficiencies at HHS. And so, it’s really exciting what you’re seeing.”

Washington Post: Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism A vaccine skeptic who has long promoted false claims about the connection between immunizations and autism has been tapped by the federal government to conduct a critical study of possible links between the two, according to current and former federal health officials. The Department of Health and Human Services has hired David Geier to conduct the analysis, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Geier and his father, Mark Geier, have published papers claiming vaccines increase the risk of autism, a theory that has been studied for decades and scientifically debunked. David Geier was disciplined by Maryland regulators more than a decade ago for practicing medicine without a license. He is listed as a data analyst in the HHS employee directory. Public health and autism experts fear that choosing a researcher who has promoted false claims will produce a flawed study with far-reaching consequences. They fear it will undermine the importance of the lifesaving inoculations and further damage trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The government’s premier public health agency has stressed vaccination as the safest and most effective measure to control the spread of some contagious diseases, including the growing measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico. Additional Coverage: New York Times

Stat: Vaccine critic’s apparent selection to head HHS autism study shocks experts People who have followed Geier and his father over the years were dumbfounded that he may have been chosen by Kennedy to conduct a study on the notion that childhood vaccines have led to an increase in autism rates. “It’s like hiring Andrew Wakefield,” said Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Law San Francisco who studies the anti-vaccine movement. Wakefield is the British doctor who alleged that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine triggered autism in some children. That study, published in the Lancet in 1998, was later retracted and Wakefield lost his medical license in 2010 for conducting research on children without the approval or oversight of his hospital’s medical board. British investigative journalist Brian Deer, author of “The Doctor Who Fooled The World,” a book about Wakefield, couldn’t believe that Geier might have been chosen to conduct a study for HHS. My first thought was … is this a hoax?” he said in an interview with STAT. “He has no relevant qualifications. … He’s not qualified to express an opinion on these matters.”

Life Site News: RFK Jr. says ‘everything is going to change’ with CDC vaccine policy in Michael Knowles interview When Michael Knowles asked new Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if anything will change regarding the public’s justifiable concern with the growth of vaccines, Kennedy quickly shot back, “Everything is going to change.” Kennedy pointed to the Centers for Disease Control’s current flawed VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) online mechanism. By way of example, he said, “None of the vaccines that are given during the first six months of life have ever been tested for autism. The only one was the DTP vaccine. And that one study that was done, according to the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, found that there was a link.” But “They threw out that study because it was based upon CDC’s surveillance system, VAERS, and they said that system is no good.” “That begs the question, why doesn’t CDC have a functional surveillance system?” he asked. “We’re gonna make sure they do.” “They don’t do pre-licensing safety testing for vaccines” he continued. “They’re the only product that’s exempt. So what they say is, if there are injuries, we’ll capture them afterward.” However, “they have a system that doesn’t capture them. In fact, CDC’s own study of its own system said it captures fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries,” Kennedy said. “It’s worthless, and everybody agrees it’s worthless.” “Why have we gone for 39 years and nobody’s fixed it?” he wondered, promising, “We’re gonna fix it.”

Axios: How RFK Jr. could threaten vaccine markets The not-so-slow drip of vaccine-unfriendly news coming from the Trump administration poses the longer-term question of just how much drugmakers would be willing to take before they decide the historically fragile market is too volatile to participate in. Why it matters: The availability of vaccines in the U.S. isn’t just dependent on whether the federal government has approved them; manufacturers have to be willing to continue making and selling them. Actions taken by the Trump administration — including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic — could ultimately convince drug companies that the market is too risky to enter or remain in, either because of depressed demand or an increased threat of litigation “It’s a fragile market and it’s not something we can take for granted, and it is a market we have seen drastically threatened before,” said Richard Hughes, a professor of vaccine law at George Washington University and a partner at Epstein, Becker & Green.

New York Times: Remedy Supported by Kennedy Leaves Some Measles Patients More Ill Doctors in West Texas are seeing measles patients whose illnesses have been complicated by an alternative therapy endorsed by vaccine skeptics including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary. Parents in Gaines County, Texas, the center of a raging measles outbreak, have increasingly turned to supplements and unproven treatments to protect their children, many of whom are unvaccinated, against the virus. One of those supplements is cod liver oil containing vitamin A, which Mr. Kennedy has promoted as a near miraculous cure for measles. Physicians at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they’ve now treated a handful of unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage. Some of them had received unsafe doses of cod liver oil and other vitamin A supplements for several weeks in an attempt to prevent a measles infection, said Dr. Summer Davies, who cares for acutely ill children at the hospital. “I had a patient that was only sick a couple of days, four or five days, but had been taking it for like three weeks,” Dr. Davies said. While doctors sometimes administer high doses of vitamin A in a hospital to manage severe measles, experts do not recommend taking it without physician supervision. Vitamin A is not an effective way to prevent measles; however, two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine are about 97 percent effective. At high doses, vitamin A can cause liver damage; dry, peeling skin; hair loss; and, in rare instances, seizures and coma. So far, doctors at West Texas hospitals have said they’ve seen patients with yellowed skin and high levels of liver enzymes in their bloodwork, both signs of a damaged liver.

CNN: Some measles patients in West Texas show signs of vitamin A toxicity, doctors say, raising concerns about misinformation Doctors treating people hospitalized as part of a measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico have also found themselves facing another problem: vitamin A toxicity. At Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, near the outbreak’s epicenter, several patients have been found to have abnormal liver function on routine lab tests, a probable sign that they’ve taken too much of the vitamin, according to Dr. Lara Johnson, pediatric hospitalist and chief medical officer for Covenant Health-Lubbock Service Area. The hospitalized children with the toxicity were all unvaccinated.
The Atlantic: Texas Never Wanted RFK Jr.’s Unproven Measles Treatment Robert F. Kennedy Jr., staring down his first major health crisis as the head of Health and Human Services, had a plan. After Texas experienced the first measles death in the United States in a decade, Kennedy told Fox earlier this month that the federal government was delivering vitamin A—an unproven treatment that Kennedy has promoted as an alternative to vaccines—to measles-stricken communities in West Texas “right now.” But a Texas official told me this week that no doses of vitamin A have arrived at the state health department—not because RFK Jr. broke his promise, but because Texas doctors didn’t ask for them. The doses are available “if we need them,” Lara Anton, the senior press officer for the state public-health department, told me in a statement. But her office, she said, has not requested any, “because healthcare providers have not requested it from us.” Anton had no records of any shipments of vitamin A, budesonide, clarithromycin, or cod-liver oil—all of which Kennedy has said can help with measles—even though the state has received 1,760 additional vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella from the federal government since the middle of February. When I asked Anton if Texas officials thought vitamin A treatment was useless, she referred me to a state website, which reads, “Vitamin A cannot prevent measles. Vitamin A may be useful as a supplemental treatment once someone has a measles infection, especially if they have a severe case of measles or low vitamin A levels and are under the care of a doctor.” The local health department for Gaines County, the epicenter of the deadly outbreak, told me that it has not received any of the alternative treatments either. (HHS did not respond to a request for comment.)

ProPublica: The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica. In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show. A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.” She added that the CDC continues to recommend vaccines as “the best way to protect against measles.” But what the nation’s top public health agency said next shows a shift in its long-standing messaging about vaccines, a sign that it may be falling in line under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines: “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” the statement said, echoing a line from a column Kennedy wrote for the Fox News website. “People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines.”

Other MAHA Activities:

Axios: RFK Jr. body shames W.Va. governor
Politico: RFK Jr.’s food stamp plan fuels tension with USDA
The Bulwark: MAGA Influencers May Have Been Paid to Break With RFK
NOTUS: ‘This Is a Safe Media Space’: Behind the Strategic Insulation of the MAHA Movement
Stat: Make America Healthy Again is ringing through statehouses across the U.S.
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Prosecutors Probe Tip About Timing of Pfizer Vaccine

Disastrous, Dangerous Appointments

New York Times: Trump Nominates Susan Monarez to Lead C.D.C. President Trump has selected Susan Monarez, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to lead the agency permanently. The president withdrew his first nominee, Dr. Dave Weldon, just hours before his confirmation hearing. If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Monarez, an infectious-disease researcher, will be the first nonphysician to lead the agency in more than 50 years. […] “She has a strong reputation as a solid researcher and expert in infectious diseases,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “She clearly understands public health and the role governmental public health plays,” he said. “I believe the public health community can work with her in a positive manner.” But Dr. Monarez has spent weeks away from Atlanta, where the agency is headquartered. She has not attended the agency’s all-hands meetings or offered reassurance to employees unsettled by the tumult of the past weeks, according to several C.D.C. employees who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. A comment section on the agency’s internal website was quickly deleted after staff members began to note that they wanted more communication from her. Center directors have been interpreting the president’s executive orders and various court instructions with little input from the director, the officials said. Instead, the acting director’s office has served as a conduit for directives from the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Washington Post: Trump’s picks to lead FDA, NIH confirmed by Senate The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump’s picks to lead two major health agencies critical to implementing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda to tackle chronic disease and charged with making decisions affecting Americans’ health. In a 53-47 party-line vote, the Senate signed off on a leader for the National Institutes of Health: Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya, the Stanford University doctor and economist who rose to prominence as a vocal critic of the country’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic. The Senate also confirmed Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration, elevating a doctor also known for criticizing the medical establishment and whose prominence skyrocketed amid the conservative backlash to the pandemic response. In a 56-44 vote, Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Illinois), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire) and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) joined Republicans in supporting the nominee, a rare moment of one of President Donald Trump’s health picks securing bipartisan support. Both Makary and Bhattacharya will lead agencies they themselves have criticized and as Trump has pledged to restore public trust in both institutions. But Democrats and patient advocacy groups have criticized some of the Trump administration’s early moves, expressing deep concern that the firings of probationary staff could imperil the nation’s global health leadership.

Washington Post: Health benefits company co-founded by Dr. Oz could be a conflict of interest Mehmet Oz, the nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, co-founded health benefits company ZorroRX with his son last year, according to now-hidden source code and a blog post on the company’s website. ZorroRX and similar companies promise to make hospitals money and save employers cash by connecting patients to the federal 340B Drug Pricing Program. That program is designed to help hospitals get a deal on prescription drugs with the government intention that profits could be passed on to patients in underserved and underinsured communities. But as use of the government drug pricing program has exploded, health care analysts say the unregulated system has driven up health care costs and is failing to help vulnerable patients, all while allowing companies such as ZorroRX to thrive. As head of CMS, Oz would lead an agency that could directly influence how much money hospitals — and in turn companies like ZorroRX — make from the federal system. Ethics experts, lawyers and health care analysts say his ties to a health benefits company that could profit off the federal drug program entangle him in a potential conflict of interest.

Stat: Oz moves closer to role running Medicare, Medicaid on party-line vote Mehmet Oz has been a heart surgeon, a TV show host, an author, and a Senate candidate. On Tuesday, he inched closer to adding CMS administrator to the list. The Senate Finance Committee voted along party lines to send Oz’s nomination to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to the full Senate for a vote, where he’ll likely be confirmed. All 14 Republicans on the committee voted in favor of Oz’s nomination and all 13 Democrats voted against. The CMS has a roughly $1.5 trillion budget and oversees health care for about 160 million Americans. All of the Democrats who spoke ahead of the vote said that they could not support Oz because he wouldn’t commit to guarding against Republicans’ planned cuts to Medicaid, the program that covers over 70 million low-income Americans.

Associated Press: Trump nominates Republican once accused of mishandling taxpayer funds as HHS watchdog President Donald Trump has nominated a Republican attorney who was once accused of mishandling taxpayer funds and has a history of launching investigations against abortion clinics to lead the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. If confirmed by the Senate, Thomas March Bell will oversee fraud, waste and abuse audits of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which spend more than $1 trillion annually. Bell, who was nominated on Monday, currently serves as general counsel for House Republicans and has worked for GOP politicians and congressional offices for decades. The president’s nomination is a brazenly political one for a job that has long been viewed as nonpartisan and focuses largely on accounting for and ferreting out fraud in some of the nation’s biggest spending programs. Bell was terminated from his role at Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality in 1997 after a state audit showed he improperly authorized a nearly $8,000 payment to the agency’s former spokesman, according to Washington Post reporting at the time.

Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Nominee for Top Health Post Is Urologist Whose Practice Treated Transgender Men President Trump’s pick for a top health post is an Alabama urologist whose practice has advertised its work treating erectile dysfunction in transgender men. Dr. Brian Christine’s nomination to be assistant secretary of health was sent to the Senate on Monday. If confirmed, he would fill a role that involves overseeing thousands of uniformed public-health service officers and in the first Trump administration was the central hub for public-health policy plans. Adm. Rachel Levine, who is transgender, had filled the role during the Biden administration

Politico: Drug policy expert set to take senior role at HHS A former Trump drug policy expert is expected to rejoin the administration in a top role at the Health and Human Services office focused on behavioral health issues, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO. Art Kleinschmidt, a longtime addiction and mental health expert, is in line to return to government as the deputy assistant secretary of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said the two people, who were granted anonymity to discuss personnel moves that aren’t yet public.

Public Health Threats

Associated Press: Texas reaches 400 measles cases as U.S. deals with outbreaks in 5 states At least five states have active measles outbreaks as of Friday, and Texas’ is the largest with 400 cases. Already, the U.S. has more measles cases this year than in all of 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. Other states with outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include New Mexico, Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma. Since February, two unvaccinated people have died from measles-related causes. The new outbreaks confirm health experts’ fears that the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization said this week cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.

West Virginia Watch: West Virginia House rejects vaccine exemption bill, a priority for Morrisey The House of Delegates on Monday rejected a bill that would have loosened the state’s strict school vaccination laws. Delegates voted 42 to 56 against Senate Bill 460. The legislation would have implemented a religious exemption for the state’s vaccine laws, allowing families who object to the shots on religious grounds to submit a written statement to their school administrator in order to be exempt from the requirements. The state’s private and parochial schools would have been able to set their own requirements for vaccines. Under current law, children must have a medical reason for being exempt from vaccine requirements. The bill also would have revamped the state’s medical exemption process.

NPR: As opposition to fluoride grows, rural America risks a new surge of tooth decay In the wooded highlands of northern Arkansas, where small towns have few dentists, water officials who serve more than 20,000 people have for more than a decade openly defied state law by refusing to add fluoride to the drinking water. For its refusal, the Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority has received hundreds of state fines amounting to about $130,000, which are stuffed in a cardboard box and left unpaid, said Andy Anderson, who is opposed to fluoridation and has led the water system for nearly two decades. This Ozark region is among hundreds of rural American communities that face a one-two punch to oral health: a dire shortage of dentists and a lack of fluoridated drinking water, which is widely viewed among dentists as one of the most effective tools to prevent tooth decay.

Associated Press: Utah bans fluoride in public drinking water, a first in the US

Public Health Threats Around The World:

Opinion and Commentary

Washington Post (Kevin Griffis): When the government becomes a health misinformation superspreader
Wall Street Journal (Editorial): RFK Jr. Is Already Vindicating His Critics
New York Times (Holden Thorp): I Was Diagnosed With Autism at 53. I Know Why Rates Are Rising.
Stat (Jess Steier): A form letter canceled my project to support local health departments
Stat (Michael Bronstein): The NIH canceled my research on vaccine hesitancy

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FACT SHEET: Trump and Republicans Are Targeting Health Care Across the Country In An Anti-Trans Crusade

The Trump Administration Has Spent Its First Three Months Laser-Focused On Stripping Rights and Health Care Access From Transgender Americans

Today, as we celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), Republicans are targeting transgender people and their health care in more visible attacks than ever before. Trump is continuing his attacks on the rights of transgender Americans and promoting his hateful rhetoric as a core focus of his agenda. Less than 10 weeks into his second term, Trump has barred the federal government from funding, sponsoring, promoting, assisting, or supporting gender-affirming care – including for troops and prisoners. GLAAD found that 10 percent of all Trump executive orders signed as of late March 2025 have targeted LGBTQI+ Americans. Trump has baselessly declared gender-affirming care for transgender youth as “child abuse” and “mutilation” while targeting non-profits supporting gender-affirming care. Meanwhile, Republicans across the country are sabotaging trans people’s health care access, with over 100 bills related to LGBTQI+ health care restrictions – primarily targeting gender-affirming care – being introduced this year alone.

Health care access has always been a critical issue for transgender Americans, long before TDOV was first celebrated in 2009. Health care for trans people is not limited to issues like gender-affirming care and anti-discrimination protections. Transgender Americans face significantly higher rates of substance use disorder and complications like lung disease and cirrhosis of the liver, poor mental health, suicidal ideation and suicide, sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS, and both physical and sexual violence. Addressing these disparities and expanding access to health care is a critical part of ensuring the care and well-being of transgender Americans.

Republicans want to rip away health care that trans people rely on, as well as millions of other Americans, by targeting the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicaid, and more. March 2025 marks the 15th anniversary of both the ACA and TDOV. From expanding Medicaid access to requiring coverage of no-cost preventive services and protecting trans people from being denied coverage, the ACA has been transformative in enabling greater access to the services queer and trans people count on to stay healthy and safe. Likewise, Medicaid has increased access to dignified, high-quality gender-affirming care and is a critical source of health care for transgender Americans. Yet Trump campaigned on repealing the ACA, and Medicaid funding is already on the GOP chopping block with Republicans in Congress pushing for the largest cuts in the history of the program. Trump and his Republican allies only want to slash Medicaid funding in order to give tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy and big corporations at the expense of working Americans – including trans people across the country.

Trump and His Republican Allies Are Waging War on the ACA and Medicaid, Which Disproportionately Help Trans People Access Care. The ACA has been transformative in enabling greater access to health care for transgender Americans, from requiring coverage of no-cost preventive services that queer and trans people count on to stay healthy — including PrEP, a medicine that is 99 percent effective at preventing the spread of HIV and can cost thousands of dollars annually – to protecting people from being denied coverage due to having a pre-existing condition. By expanding Medicaid, the ACA also enabled more lower-income trans people to access affordable health care. Thanks to the ACA, all health facilities and programs receiving federal funding cannot deny insurance coverage or care on the basis of sex and gender identity and expression. But Republicans want to take that all away; Trump campaigned on repealing the ACA, which would have a devastating impact on the trans community and disseminate access to health care. Medicaid has also increased access to dignified, high-quality gender-affirming care for transgender Americans, and disproportionately serves transgender Americans and covers gender-affirming care for between 60 to 80 percent of trans people enrolled in the program in 27 states and the District of Columbia. Yet Republicans in Congress are pushing for billions of dollars in cuts to the program, which would rip away health care from tens of millions of Americans, including hundreds of thousands of trans people, all to fund tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.

On His First Day In Office, Trump Banned Gender-Affirming Care and Erased Critical LGBTQI+-Related Medical Information Used By Doctors Across the Country. Trump moved quickly after taking office to target health care access for trans people. First, he signed an executive order declaring that the government would only recognize two sexes and barred taxpayer funds from being used for gender-affirming healthcare. Then, his administration eliminated nearly all mentions of LGBTQI+ content, including the words “transgender” and “gender identity,” from the CDC website – which provides guidance to medical providers across the country for everyday health care services. Both actions have been challenged in court and are currently paused as lawsuits proceed through the federal court system.

The Trump Administration Barred The Government From Funding, Sponsoring, Promoting, Assisting, or Supporting Gender-Affirming Care – Including For Troops and Prisoners. On January 27, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to reinstate his first administration’s ban on trans people from serving in the military, revoking Biden-era policies allowing transgender troops to access gender-affirming medical care. On January 28, Trump signed an executive order declaring that the United States would not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” gender-affirming medical care for people under the age of 19. As part of this policy, the Federal Bureau of Prisons stopped offering gender-affirming medical treatment to transgender inmates and began moving trans women in federal custody to men’s prisons.

Trump Is Pushing to Halt Gender-Affirming Coverage For The Hundreds of Thousands of Trans People On Medicaid. Trump’s executive order, if fully implemented, would cut off government health insurance coverage of gender-affirming care, which would be a seismic shift for hundreds of thousands of transgender Americans. Over 20 percent of the 1.3 million transgender adults in the U.S. are enrolled in Medicaid (compared to roughly 16 percent of adults overall), 60 percent of whom definitively have coverage of gender-affirming care under state laws. Medicaid covers gender-affirming care in 27 states and the District of Columbia.
Hospitals Have Begun Pausing Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Youth. As a result of Trump’s anti-trans executive orders targeting federal funding, many hospitals across the country – even outside those states – reportedly began pausing gender-affirming care for people under 19 in the wake of Trump’s executive order. CMS estimates that around 15 percent of all Medicare-enrolled hospitals are government-owned – many of which disproportionately serve rural communities – and were immediately required to stop providing gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth under the ban.

The Trump Administration Baselessly Declared Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Youth “Child Abuse” and “Mutilation.” On February 18, the Trump administration added a header to the top of HHS websites declaring, “Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female… The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation and to women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department reject it.” On February 19, the Trump administration rolled out a new Health & Human Services (HHS) webpage titled “Protecting Women and Children” declaring gender-affirming care for youth a form of “child abuse,” pushing an exclusionary definition of sex to ignore and erase trans people, and falsely framing gender-affirming care as “chemical and surgical mutilation.”

The Trump Administration Is Targeting Non-Profits Supporting Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Youth. On March 7, Trump signed an executive order targeting nonprofits supporting gender-affirming care for transgender youth, declaring it a “substantial illegal purpose” and blocking employees from receiving Public Service Loan Forgiveness. CMS estimates that around half of all Medicare-enrolled hospitals are non-profit, meaning that Trump’s executive order will further push hospitals to phase-out gender-affirming care for transgender youth or risk facing scrutiny by the federal government.

Republicans Across the Country Are Targeting Gender-Affirming Care. According to PBS, 26 states have passed laws banning or limiting gender-affirming care for minors as of March 2025. In 2025 alone, over 800 anti-trans bills have been introduced in 49 states, with 40 passing (all in Republican-led states) and over 700 currently pending. The ACLU has tracked over 100 bills related to LGBTQI+ health care restrictions, primarily targeting gender-affirming care.

Idaho Republicans Ended Medicaid Coverage of Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Youth and Passed A Law Allowing Health Care Providers and Insurers To Refuse Care To LGBTQI+ Patients. This year, Idaho Republicans passed a law explicitly allowing health care professionals, institutions, and payers to discriminate against LGBTQI+ patients on the basis of religious, moral, or ethical grounds. Idaho Republicans also banned Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.
Kansas Republicans Banned Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Youth. This year, Kansas Republicans passed a law barring health care providers from offering gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth and requiring “professional discipline” against providers offering gender-affirming treatments.
Mississippi Ended Medicaid Coverage of Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Youth. This year, Mississippi passed a law barring Medicaid from covering gender-affirming Medicaid from reimbursing or paying for gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. The bill is awaiting the Governor’s signature.
Wyoming Banned Off-Label Gender-Affirming Drug Prescriptions. This year, Wyoming passed a law barring health care providers from prescribing medications for off-label indications related to gender-affirming medical care. All but one Democrat in the state legislature voted against the bill.
Kentucky Republicans Passed A Loophole Allowing Unlicensed Individuals To Practice Harmful Conversion Therapy – But It Was Vetoed By Democratic Governor Andy Beshear. This year, Kentucky Republicans passed a law allowing unlicensed, unaccredited people to continue the banned practice of harmful conversion therapy on children in the state, including transgender youth. Democratic Governor Andy Beshear quickly vetoed the bill as soon as it reached his desk.

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IN THE STATES: Lawmakers and Advocates Demand an End to the Republican War on Health Care

Protect Our Care Holds More Than 25 Events Across 13 States in the Last 2 Weeks

Over the past two weeks, members of Congress, local elected officials, and advocates joined Protect Our Care for events in Alaska, Arizona, California, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, demanding that Republicans end their war on American health care. Right now, Republicans are working to slash nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and raise premiums for hard-working families by ending cost-saving tax credits. As a result, millions of Americans across the country would lose their health coverage and premium costs would skyrocket. Recent polling found there is broad opposition across party lines to any cuts to Medicaid, with 67 percent saying Congress should increase spending on Medicaid or keep it about the same. Republicans are deeply mistaken if they think they can get away with devastating our health care system.

Protect Our Care is continuing its “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign to underscore the importance of Medicaid across the country. Alongside partners, lawmakers, and other advocates, Protect Our Care is working to defend Medicaid from the Republican-led plan to slash funding to pay for another round of tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. Read more about the latest round of paid ads here.

ALASKA

Tuesday, March 18 – House Health and Social Services Committee Hearing on ePTCs with Rep. Genevieve Mina and Alaska Health Care Advocates: Representative Genevieve Mina, advocates and storytellers gathered for the Alaska House Health and Social Services Committee Hearing to discuss HJR 9, which urges the US Congress to extend enhanced premium tax credits for health insurance premiums under the ACA, which are set to expire at the end of 2025. ePTC recipients shared how they have positively impacted their lives: “I work four jobs to support my kids, and the ACA tax credits bring my health insurance premium down from $2,300 to $205,” said Shellie Gooden, a single mother. “As a diabetic, I need this coverage to stay healthy for my children. Without these credits, affording both housing and medical care simply won’t be realistic for our family.” You can watch the committee hearing here, read HJR 9 here, and view the post-event release here.

Thursday, March 20 – Empty Suit Town Hall with Alaska Advocates and Storytellers: Over 600 Alaskans joined Protect Our Care Arizona and the 907 Institute at Anchorage Loussac Library to raise awareness against proposed Medicaid cuts for Alaskans and demand answers from Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich. “Alaska has the most expensive health care in the country, and with 250,000 Alaskans relying on Medicaid, cuts to this program would be devastating,” said Aubrey Wieber, Executive Director of the 907 Initiative. “Medicaid isn’t just a lifeline for patients—it’s an economic engine that supports jobs and health care providers across our state.” You can read the post-event release here.

Alaska Current: Alaskans turn to empty-chair town halls as Sullivan, Begich duck outrage over Trump
Anchorage Daily News: Protests draw hundreds as Alaska congressional delegation diverges in response to Trump policies
Alaska Current: Sullivan says he doesn’t need to meet with outraged Alaskans as they pack empty-chair town halls

Friday, March 21 – Medicaid Postcard Signing Party and Drop-Off with Alaska SEIU Caregivers: SEIU Caregivers and advocates signed and hand-delivered nearly 200 postcards bringing attention to Medicaid and calling on Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan to protect the vital program from devastating cuts. Despite challenges from office staff members, the postcards were delivered at the Anchorage, Fairbanks and Matsu state offices of Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski.

KKBI: Homer caregivers push for better wages

Wednesday, March 26 – ACA Anniversary/ePTC/Medicaid Event with Alaska Storytellers and Advocates: 13 advocates and storytellers from across the state joined Protect Our Care Alaska to mark the 15th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) passage and discuss the urgent need to protect the ACA, as well as ePTCs and Medicaid expansion. From small business owners and caregivers to college students and nonprofit leaders, participants shared emotional and compelling stories about how the ACA and Medicaid expansion have made health care more affordable and accessible in Alaska. Pat Race, a small business owner and artist in Juneau, stressed the ACA’s economic impact: “So many downtown businesses wouldn’t exist without the ACA. I’ve had real conversations about shutting down my shop if I lost coverage. One in five small business owners relies on the ACA. Undermining it would be a huge blow to our economy.” You can read the post-event release here, and watch the full event here.

ARIZONA

Monday, March 17 – ePTC/Medicaid Event with Rep. Yassamin Ansari and Advocates: Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ-03), emergency room physician Dr. Larry DeLuca, and Les Braswell of Honest Arizona joined Protect Our Care Arizona to discuss the urgent need for Congress to stop Republican efforts to slash Medicaid and raise premiums for millions of people through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Speakers urged Congress to protect Medicaid and renew these tax credits so that Arizonans can continue to rely on these benefits to remain insured and healthy: “I’m grateful to Congresswoman Ansari for her advocacy for expanding access to health care,” said Les Braswell, Honest Arizona. “I live in the district next door and I’m urging my own Congressman David Schweikert to work with Congresswoman Ansari to expand the Enhanced Premium Tax Credits and make them permanent.” You can watch the full event here and read the post-event release here.

Washington Examiner: Fractured Democrats grasp for unity during ‘Day of Action’

Monday, March 17 – Medicaid Town Hall with Senators Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego and Storytellers in Phoenix: Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego held a town hall on Monday in Phoenix warning Arizonans of “impending cuts” to Medicaid (also known as AHCCCS in Arizona), which featured storyteller Marcos Castillo. “They fight dirty and we’re not willing to get in the mud with them,” said Protect Our Care storyteller Marcos Castillo. “Maybe it is time we start getting in the mud with them.” You can watch the full event here.

Fox 10 Phoenix: Arizona Senators Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego warn of ‘impending cuts’ to Medicaid
AZ Mirror: ‘Make them fear voters more than Trump’: Kelly, Gallego rally against GOP Medicaid cuts
Mesa Tribune: Medicaid concerns aired at Democratic town hall
KYMA: Locals react to Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego’s Medicaid Town Hall
MSNBC: ‘Tell them how pissed off you are’: Democratic senators hold town halls as GOP cancel events
KTAR: Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego explain how potential Medicaid cuts would hurt Arizonans at town hall
AZ Central: Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego answer questions on potential Medicaid cuts
AZ Central: Sens. Gallego, Kelly urged at town hall session to resist Trump Medicaid cuts
KJZZ: ‘You want a game plan’: Arizonans share how Medicaid cuts would hurt at Kelly, Gallego town hall
12 News: Town hall participants grill Arizona senators over potential cuts to Medicaid

Thursday, March 20 – Medicaid Week of Action Event at the Arizona State Capitol with Health Care Advocates and Storytellers: Health care workers, storytellers and advocates joined Protect Our Care Arizona for a rally outside the Arizona State Capitol to protect health care for all Arizonans and urge Congressman David Schweikert to oppose cuts to health care. This press event was part of a larger nationwide effort to oppose billionaire-driven efforts to slash federal programs like Medicaid in order to fund tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. “Our ten-year-old daughter requires multiple treatments,” said Quinna Brown, a mother of three adopted children, including one child with special needs. “Today, she is thriving because of those treatments. She is functioning as a happy, creative ten-year-old girl. The idea of her losing her services is very scary. We do not know what will happen and when it will happen.” You can read the post-event release here, and watch the full event here.

CALIFORNIA

Sunday, March 23 – Benefits Over Billionaires Tour with Congressman Ro Khanna in Bakersfield (Rep. David Valadao’s District): Rep. Ro Khanna, along with Protect Our Care and other progressive partners, hosted a town hall in CA-22 which is held by Republican Rep. David Valadao who has refused to hold a town hall with his constituents. Rep. Khanna wanted to hear from people directly impacted by Trump’s mass firings and the Republicans’ $880 billion in Medicaid cuts. As Republicans follow orders to dodge their constituents’ protests, Californians must be loud and clear in standing up to the unholy alliance of wealth and power in our time and rejecting the failed policies that put billionaires and corporations over the working class.

Politico: Ro Khanna confronts voters spoiling for a fight – against GOP – in town hall tour
San Francisco Chronicle: A Bay Area Democrat ventured into a red district for a town hall. Here’s how it went
Spectrum News 1: U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna holds town hall in Bakersfield
KBAK (CBS Bakersfield): Ro Khanna holds town hall in Valadao’s district
KGET (NBC Bakersfield): Ro Khanna holds town hall in Bakersfield

Sunday, March 23 – Benefits Over Billionaires Tour with Congressman Ro Khanna in Norco (Rep. Young Kim’s District): Rep. Ro Khanna, along with Protect Our Care and other progressive partners, hosted a town hall in CA-40 which is held by Republican Rep. Young Kim who has refused to hold a town hall with her constituents. Rep. Khanna wanted to hear from people directly impacted by Trump’s mass firings and the Republicans’ $880 billion in Medicaid cuts. As Republicans follow orders to dodge their constituents’ protests, Californians must be loud and clear in standing up to the unholy alliance of wealth and power in our time and rejecting the failed policies that put billionaires and corporations over the working class.

Sunday, March 23 – Benefits Over Billionaires Tour with Congressman Ro Khanna in Anaheim (Rep. Ken Calvert’s District): Rep. Ro Khanna, along with Protect Our Care and other progressive partners, hosted a town hall in CA-40 which is held by Republican Rep. Young Kim who has refused to hold a town hall with her constituents. Rep. Khanna wanted to hear from people directly impacted by Trump’s mass firings and the Republicans’ $880 billion in Medicaid cuts. As Republicans follow orders to dodge their constituents’ protests, Californians must be loud and clear in standing up to the unholy alliance of wealth and power in our time and rejecting the failed policies that put billionaires and corporations over the working class.

CBS News: Packed Santa Clara town hall highlights growing frustration over Trump and Musk’s policies

IOWA

Friday, March 21 – ACA Anniversary Event with Health Care Advocates: Laura Packard, executive director of Healthcare Voter, and Margarida Jorge, executive director of Healthcare for America Now, joined Protect Our Care Iowa to highlight the ongoing threats to American health care as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) turns 15 years old. “This is not acceptable, we need to get loud and make sure they hear us again,” said Laura Packard. “They should never be threatening health insurance for millions of Americans to pay for tax giveaways to Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies, they do not need more yachts. We need more health care.” You can view remarks here, and view the post-event release here.

MAINE

Monday, March 24 – ACA Anniversary/ePTC/Medicaid Event with Maine Assistant House Leader Lori Gramlich and Advocates: Maine Assistant House Leader Lori Gramlich and advocates from Children’s Alliance of Maine and Consumers for Affordable Health Care joined Protect Our Care Maine to highlight the ongoing threats to American health care as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) turns 15 years old. For over a decade, millions of Americans have been able to get quality and affordable health care through the ACA, and more Mainers than ever are covered. But Republicans remain hard at work trying to rip away Mainers’ access to quality, affordable health coverage. “We should be celebrating this landmark legislation, but instead, we are fighting to protect the access that Maine people rely on,” said Assistant House Leader Lori Gramlich. “Maine’s congressional delegation must stand up against the incredibly harmful proposals put forward by President Trump and Republican lawmakers to rip away Mainers’ health insurance.” You can read the post-event release here, and watch the full event here.

WABI: Maine organizations and lawmakers call on the state’s Congressional Delegation to fight against healthcare cuts
Maine Public: Health care advocates urge Maine’s federal lawmakers to fight against Medicaid cuts

MINNESOTA

Monday, March 24 – Virtual Health Care Town Hall with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and Health Care Advocates: Protect Our Care Minnesota hosted a virtual health care town hall alongside Senator Amy Klobuchar. During the town hall, Senator Klobuchar highlighted the ongoing threats to Minnesotans’ health care and discussed what she and her colleagues are doing to protect access to care. “Republicans in Congress are moving forward with a budget that threatens health care for the 80 million Americans who get coverage through Medicaid,” said Senator Klobuchar. “In Minnesota that’s more than a million seniors, families, children, veterans, and people with disabilities. I’ve been [across the state] in senior living facilities, and they are worried about their health care being taken away. Why? Right now, Medicaid provides health care for at least one-in-five rural Minnesotans, more than 31% of kids in our state, more than half of all nursing home residents across our state. These aren’t just numbers. Everyone knows someone who gets access to care through Medicaid.” You can watch the town hall here.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Monday, March 24 – ACA Anniversary/ePTC/Medicaid Event with New Hampshire Health Care Advocates: Health care and policy advocates Lisa Beaudoin, Jake Berry and Edward Shanshala joined Protect Our Care New Hampshire to highlight ongoing threats to American health care as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marks its 15th anniversary. For over a decade, millions of Americans have gained quality, affordable health care through the ACA. Today, more Granite Staters have coverage than ever before, and insurance rates statewide are at record highs. Yet there are those in Congress who support efforts to undermine this progress, aiming to remove vital tax credits that help New Hampshire families save thousands annually and proposing to slash Medicaid funding by at least $880 billion—putting health care at risk for working families and vulnerable populations statewide. “In Washington, proposals to slash Medicaid by as much as $800 billion over the next decade pose a real and frightening threat to New Hampshire,” said Edward D. Shanshala, CEO of Ammonoosuc Community Health Services. “Even a fraction of those cuts would severely harm coverage for individuals with disabilities, families, and pregnant mothers. And here, the stakes are uniquely high: New Hampshire is one of just nine states with a trigger law, meaning if federal Medicaid funding drops by even one dollar below the current 90% level, Medicaid expansion would immediately end—no votes, no debate, just immediate loss of coverage. The consequences would be devastating.” You can read the post-event release here, and watch the full event here.

The Tip Sheet: On the 15th Anniversary of the ACA, NH Celebrates the Health Care Accomplishments but Worries about the Future for Granite Staters
Patch: Looking at American healthcare as the Affordable Care Act turns 15

NEW YORK

Tuesday, March 18 – Medicaid Day of Action Press Conference with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies and New York Medicaid Storytellers: House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jefferies held a press conference in Brooklyn highlighting the importance of protecting Medicaid for New Yorkers as part of the Medicaid Day of Action. Protect Our Care New York worked with 1199SEIU and the Healthcare Education Project to provide storyteller and provider Dr. Judith Flores, a pediatrician, to speak at the event. “Medicaid is health care, and we believe that in the United States of America, it is not simply a privilege, it is a right. Medicaid is health care for people in this community, in this city, in this country. It is not simply a privilege to have health care in the United States of America. It is a right, and we’re going to fight to make sure that right is alive and well, and save Medicaid in the United States of America,” said Rep. Hakeem Jefferies. You can watch the event here.

Axios: Democrats hammer GOP on Medicaid after weeks of turmoil
NY1: House Democrats hold ‘Medicaid Day of Action’ to call attention to expected cuts

Saturday, March 22 – 1199SEIU Stop Cuts to Health Care Rally at Rep. Nicole Milliotakis: 1199SEIU health care workers rallied with other South Brooklynites to call on Rep. Malliotakis to protect Medicaid–which over 7 million New Yorkers depend on for their health care–and other federal programs that are a lifeline for millions. In late February, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) voted for a congressional budget reconciliation resolution that sets Congress on a path to decimate and radically change federal health care programs that millions of New Yorkers count on for their care. “I think we all ended up here today because we are tired of opening up our phones and seeing nothing but Trump and Musk taking a chainsaw to basic services regular people depend on. Services like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP.” said the organizer, Christina. “It’s not to cut waste and fraud, but to give tax cuts to billionaires… these cuts will result in a loss of 2.7 billion dollars in our district”

Radio Free Bay Ridge: Rally Against Nicole Malliotakis’s Cuts to Medicaid

Thursday, March 27 – ACA Anniversary Event with Congressmembers Dan Goldman, Pat Ryan, Tim Kennedy, and State Legislators: Congressmen Dan Goldman (NY-10), Pat Ryan (NY-18) and Tim Kennedy (NY-26), State Senator Gustavo Rivera (Senate Health Committee Chair) and Assembly Member Amy Paulin (Assembly Health Committee Chair) joined Protect Our Care New York to highlight the ongoing threats to American health care as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) turned 15 years old. “This week, the Affordable Care Act turned 15 years old – providing insurance coverage to more people than ever before – adding over 24 million enrollees,” said Congressman Tim Kennedy (NY-26). “We all know how important our health and well-being is, and the peace of mind that comes with being able to see a specialist when something is wrong, to have your child see a doctor when they are sick, or to know your parents can receive long-term care when they need it. The ACA, Medicaid, and Medicare are all investments in the health and well-being of our communities and our country. It is a basic human right to have access to health care. Yet, time and again, Republicans have put the ACA and Medicaid on the chopping block to pay for tax giveaways for the ultra-rich. We need to keep organizing, mobilizing, and speaking out against these attacks on our health care that would hurt hardworking families who deserve so much more.” You can watch the event here, and view the post-event release here.

WCBS: New York Democrats come together to highlight the 15th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (preview clip)
1010WINS: New York Democrats come together to highlight the 15th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (preview clip)

NORTH CAROLINA

Thursday, March 20 – Medicaid Defense Event with State Representative Julie von Haefen and Health Care Advocates: State Rep. Julie von Haefen, Little Lobbyists mom Shannon Dingle, and former AARP National President Eric Schneidewind joined Protect Our Care North Carolina to discuss the GOP’s latest budget plan to put billionaires over Americans. “The fact that Medicaid is under attack right now breaks my heart because of that decade-long effort we had to expand it and get where we are today,” said Representative von Haefen. “I recently met a woman at an event who came up to me and said ‘I just wanted to thank you so much for your vote on Medicaid and your hard work to get health care to somebody like me.’ She said that three weeks after she received her Medicaid card, she had a serious medical problem and ended up having to have open heart surgery. She said that if she did not have Medicaid it would have been financially devastating.” You can watch the event here, and view the post-event release here.

Thursday, March 27 – ACA Anniversary Event with Lieutenant Governor Rachel Hunt and Health Care Advocates: Lt. Gov Rachel Hunt, Pediatrician Dr. David Hill, and health care advocate DonnaMarie Woodson joined Protect Our Care North Carolina to highlight the ongoing threats to American health care as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) turns 15 years old. “For 15 years, the ACA has provided quality, affordable health care to Americans and we won’t let that be ripped away,” said Lt. Governor Rachel Hunt. “National Republicans’ attacks on the ACA will not stop, but we have seen them all before and we have made it through.” You can watch the event here, and view the post-event release here.

PENNSYLVANIA

Tuesday, March 18 – Medicaid 101 Press Briefing with Pennsylvania Health Access Network and Health Care Advocates: Becky Ludwick of PA Partnerships for Children, Jennifer Garman of Disability Rights Pennsylvania, Michael Berman of Protect Our Care Pennsylvania, and Antoinette Kraus of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network joined a call today to discuss the devastating impact of proposed cuts to Medicaid on the 3 million Pennsylvanias who rely on the program for health coverage, particularly children, seniors, and people with disabilities. “Medicaid covers over 3 million Pennsylvanians. These are Pennsylvanians from every county in the Commonwealth. They are children, older adults, people with disabilities, and low-income working Pennsylvanians,” said Antoinette Kraus, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network. “Each year, we field over 10,000 calls from people from across Pennsylvania about health insurance. Across the board, we hear that Medicaid is a life-saving program that keeps people healthy and working. Beyond coverage, Medicaid is a top funder for critical services that communities across Pennsylvania rely on, like mental and behavioral health care, school nurses, substance use disorder treatment, community health centers, rural hospitals, in-home care, and nursing homes.” You can watch the event here, and view the post-event release here.

KYW: (Also ran during the 6pm, 4am, and 7am broadcasts)
KYW: (Also ran during the 7pm, 9pm, 11pm, and 6am broadcasts)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pennsylvania advocates warn of devastating impacts as federal Medicaid cuts loom
WFMZ: ‘This funding is critical’: PA organizations unite to protect Medicaid funding in face of proposed cuts
Tioga Publishing: ‘This funding is critical’: PA organizations unite to protect Medicaid funding in face of proposed cuts

Wednesday, March 19 – Congressman Scott Perry “Empty Chair” Townhall in Harrisburg, PA: Protect Our Care provided support for an “Empty Chair” Medicaid townhall to hold Congressman Scott Perry accountable for refusing to show up and listen to how these devastating Medicaid cuts will impact the people he represents.

WGAL: Frustration boils over at Scott Perry
WGAL: Calls for townhalls
WGAL: Advocates hold their own townhall
WGAL: Frustration boils over (also ran during the 1am broadcast)
WGAL: Where is Scott Perry? (also ran during the 5am, 6am, and 7am broadcasts)
Politics PA: ‘Where is Scott Perry?’: Progressive Group Holds Town Hall, With Focus Largely on Medicaid Cuts.
PennLive: ‘Where is Scott Perry?’: Progressive group holds town hall, with focus largely on Medicaid cuts
The Keystone: Scott Perry isn’t holding town halls. His constituents did one anyway, aiming ire at Trump, Musk
WGAL: US Rep. Scott Perry’s constituents urge him to protect their health care

Thursday, March 20 – Congressman Ryan Mackenzie “Empty Chair” Townhall in Bethlehem, PA with Congressman Jamie Raskin and DNC Chair Ken Martin: Protect Our Care provided support for an “Empty Chair” Medicaid townhall to hold Congressman Ryan Mackenzie accountable for refusing to show up and listen to how these devastating Medicaid cuts will impact the people he represents.

KYW: Pennsylvanians host their own townhall
WFMZ: Pennsylvanians call out Rep. Mackenzie for voting to cut Medicaid
Lehigh Valley News: Hundreds rally with Democrats over Medicaid threats, Trump cuts
Morning Call: At People’s Town Hall, Lehigh Valley residents and politicians attack Ryan Mackenzie, national Republicans

VIRGINIA

Tuesday, March 18 – Medicaid Roundtable with Congressman Bobby Scott and Health Care Advocates: Protect Our Care Virginia provided storytellers Yusun Beck and Sparkle Edwards as well as press support for Congressman Scott’s Medicaid roundtable. “House Republicans and President Trump have made their intentions clear,” said Congressman Scott. They’re going to try to cut the Medicaid program. The proposal includes $880 billion in cuts to the two programs under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.” You can watch the event here.

13NewsNow: Congressman Bobby Scott hosts Medicaid roundtable amid fears of cuts
13NewsNow: Hampton Roads caregivers raise alarm about possible cuts to Medicaid: ‘Devastated, afraid and shocked’
WAVY: Rep. Scott hosts Medicaid roundtable in Norfolk
WRIC: Rep. Scott hosts Medicaid roundtable

Tuesday, March 18 – Medicaid Press Conference with Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan and Health Care Advocates: Protect Our Care Virginia provided storyteller Aida Pacheco and press support for Congresswoman McClellan’s event. “House Republicans claim they’re not trying to cut Medicaid, yet the budget plan that they adopted, as the CBO has made clear, can only be achieved with cuts to Medicaid,” said Congresswoman McClellan. “Speaker Mike Johnson says that the people on Medicaid are 29-year-olds, sitting in their mom’s house playing video games. With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, that’s a lie.” You can listen to the event’s audio here, and view the post-event release here.

Virginia Mercury: ‘Not on our watch’: McClellan stresses congressional fight to defend Medicaid from potential cuts

Saturday, March 22 – “Cardboard Kiggans” Accountability Town Hall in Virginia Beach, VA: Protect Our Care Virginia provided staffing support for a “Cardboard Kiggans” accountability town hall with Affordable Virginia, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, and Freedom Virginia. At the event, neighbors shared their stories and learned more about how this administration’s disastrous policies are impacting Hampton Roads.

WAVY: Cardboard Kiggans Town Hall (also ran during the 11pm, 6am, and 7am broadcasts)
13NewsNow: Cardboard Kiggans Town Hall

WEST VIRGINIA

Monday, March 24 – ACA Anniversary/ePTC/Medicaid Event with West Virginia Health Care Advocates: Health care advocates across West Virginia joined Protect Our Care West Virginia to highlight how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has dramatically shifted West Virginia’s health care landscape, and the ongoing threats to American health care as the Affordable Care ACA turns 15 years old. “Fifteen percent of West Virginia’s hospitals are at immediate risk of closure, so if the ACA, Enhanced Premium Tax Credits and Medicaid expansion go away, those hospitals will likely close,” said Rich Sutphin, executive director of West Virginia Rural Health Association. “Then, all other hospitals in the state will have to evaluate whether they can afford to continue offering high quality care and expanded services.” You can watch the full event here, and read the post-event release here.

WISCONSIN

Thursday, March 20 – Medicaid Defense Roundtable with U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and Health Care Advocates: U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin discussed the importance of Medicaid at a roundtable in Madison, WI. Joining the Senator were six Wisconsinites who would be directly impacted by the Republican budget plan that calls for slashing at least $880 billion from Medicaid to give tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy and big corporations. “This week, I’ve been traveling across the state to talk with families about what’s at stake as Republicans work overtime to terminate their health care and rip the rug out from under them,” said Senator Tammy Baldwin. “The bottom line is clear – people are really scared, and sadly, they have good reason to be. Republicans plan to slash Medicaid so they can fund their tax breaks for people like Elon Musk is wrong – and I am proud to stand with Wisconsinites and fight back.” You can view the post-event release here.

SPNWS: Senator Baldwin continues her “Hands Off Medicaid Tour” (also ran during the 6am, 7am, 8am, 9am, and 10am broadcasts)
WKOW-TV (ABC): Baldwin stops in Madison to discuss Medicaid cuts
WisPolitics: Protect Our Care: Sen. Baldwin sounds the alarm against GOP plans to slash Medicaid funding at Madison roundtable

Friday, March 21 – ACA Anniversary Event with Governor Tony Evers and Health Care Advocates: Governor Tony Evers joined Protect Our Care Wisconsin to highlight the ongoing threats to American health care as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) turns 15 years old. For over a decade, millions of Americans have been able to get quality and affordable health care through the ACA, and more Wisconsinites than ever are covered. “With the reckless actions coming out of Washington in recent weeks, it’s more important than ever to protect access to affordable health care here in Wisconsin and across our country,” said Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers. “I promise that, as long as I’m governor, we’re going to keep doing everything we can to fight this recklessness and make sure Wisconsinites receive health care that’s affordable and accessible.” You can watch the event here.

ashoup In News, Statement

STATEMENT: RFK Jr. Guts Critical Services And Puts Health Care For Millions At Risk

The GOP “Bloodbath” Continues at HHS With 20,000 Critical Jobs Lost

Washington, D.C. – Today, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. announced plans to dismantle critical health care services for the American people by gutting his own department. The latest plan includes firing 10,000 employees who have been responding to infectious disease outbreaks, approving new life-saving drugs, administering critical programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and more. This comes after 10,000 employees have already left HHS due to DOGE efforts to slash the federal workforce to the bone and cut the programs the American people rely on.

This latest move is all part of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to gut federal funding for health care. The Trump administration has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants for universities and state agencies around the country studying health issues over the past few weeks. Read more about the “bloodbath” here.

Republicans are also working to slash nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and raise costs on hard-working families by ending cost-saving tax credits. As a result, millions of Americans will be at risk of losing their health care coverage. Protect Our Care recently released a report detailing all the GOP attacks on health care.

Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach issued a statement:

“Donald Trump continues to gut vital health programs across the country. These drastic cuts will undermine disease prevention, food inspection, and drug safety. Lifesaving research to develop treatments and cures for diseases will be eliminated. America will be vulnerable to the next big health threat, and more Americans will get sick, and more will die. There is no telling just how damaging these cuts will be, but they will be felt across the country.”

BACKGROUND

Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr. Plans 10,000 Job Cuts in Major Restructuring of Health Department.

“Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more.”
“The worker cuts are in addition to roughly 10,000 employees who opted to leave the department since President Trump took office, through voluntary separation offers, according to the documents. The voluntary departures and the plan, if fully implemented, would result in the department shedding about one-quarter of its workforce, shrinking to 62,000 federal health workers. It will also lose five of its 10 regional offices.”

New York Times: Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services.

“The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu. State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately.”

ashoup In News, Roundup

“It’s A Bloodbath”: Trump Administration Slashes Millions in NIH Funding for Maternal Health, HIV, and Other Research

The Republican War On Health Care Continues With Devastating Cuts to Lifesaving Research

Over the last two days, the Trump administration has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants for universities and state agencies around the country studying health issues, including maternal mortality, domestic violence, climate change, HIV, health disparities, immunizations, and more. Trump and his RFK-led HHS also shuttered its Long Covid office, which worked on curing Long Covid and streamlining Covid-related public health efforts, and they froze funding for family planning efforts such as contraception distribution, STD and pregnancy testing, and counseling for infertility. With these new efforts, the Trump administration is not only targeting women, children, people of color, and other marginalized communities, it is hurting universities, axing much-needed life-saving research and medical innovation, and threatening public health. These cuts will dramatically harm the health and well-being of communities nationwide, and they will cost lives.

CNN: ‘People Will Die Based on These Decisions’: Trump Administration Cuts Funding for Dozens of HIV Studies.

“‘This is just pure chaos and insanity,’ said Kelley, chair of the HIV Medicine Association. The National Institutes of Health canceled two grants last week for HIV projects she was working on, as well as funding for a large HIV clinical trial network she was involved with. ‘It’s just a massive, massive bloodbath,’ Kelley said. The NIH has eliminated funding for dozens of HIV-related research grants, according to a US Department of Health and Human Services database that was updated last week, halting studies and threatening patient care across the country. Several researchers said the cuts put a stop to hopes of ending HIV in the US and around the world.”

Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Plans to Freeze Family-Planning Grants.

“The freeze, which could be made public as soon as this week, would suspend funding meant to support, in the U.S., pregnancy testing, provision of contraception, treatment of sexually transmitted infections and evaluation and counseling for infertility.”
“The Department of Health and Human Services distributes the funds under its program known as Title X. The $120 million is roughly half the money available for the program for the year, according to the HHS website. The program gives free or discounted services to about four million people annually through a network of roughly 4,000 clinics.”

NBC: CDC Is Pulling Back $11B in COVID Funding Sent to Health Departments Across the U.S.

“‘The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,’ HHS Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement. ‘HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again…’ The clawed-back funds were largely being used for Covid testing, vaccination, community health workers and initiatives to address Covid health disparities among high-risk and underserved populations, including racial and ethnic minority populations and rural communities, as well as global Covid projects, according to talking points emailed from CDC leadership to agency departments on Tuesday.”

Politico: Long COVID Office ‘Will Be Closing,’ Trump Administration Announces.

“The Trump administration is shuttering HHS’ long Covid office as part of its reorganization, according to an internal email… The office’s handful of staff were not told whether they would remain employed in the federal government or whether the office would close immediately or wind down operations over time… One HHS employee who works on long Covid, granted anonymity to share details of the move, argued closing the office would not save much money and could cost more over time. Not only could suspending the office’s coordination work lead to overlapping and duplicated efforts, the employee said, but abandoning work that could cure Long Covid means the country’s health care system will have to provide years if not decades of costly care for tens of millions of chronically ill people.”

NOTUS: HHS Pulled Funds for HIV Research at 22 Universities.

“The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services terminated around 60 federal grants supporting HIV and HIV prevention-related research over the past five weeks, cutting tens of millions in funding for programs spread across nearly two dozen universities and a handful of other institutions. Much of the research focused on population groups most impacted by HIV. Roughly half of the programs centered on Black or Latino populations, who have made up the vast majority of recent HIV infections per estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Others focused on transgender people, a frequent target of this White House. At least one grant focused on preventing HIV in infants and children… ‘The American people have seen their tax dollars used to fund the passion projects of unelected bureaucrats rather than to advance the national interest,’ the memo reads. ‘The American people have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.’”

Mother Jones: Domestic Violence and Maternal Mortality Are Rising. The NIH Just Defunded a Project to Study Both.

“The National Institutes of Health intended to terminate a grant of approximately $400,000 for one of her projects. Fielding-Miller, who researches infectious diseases and gender-based violence, along with some colleagues who do similar work received the funds last fall to support a project focused on training up to a dozen early-career researchers on how to better study intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy. The lead researchers were just about to start recruiting mentees for the year-and-a-half-long program, Fielding-Miller said… ‘Research programs based primarily on artificial and non-scientific categories, including amorphous equity objectives, are antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness,’ the termination letter from the NIH said… Emily Hilliard, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the NIH, said: ‘At HHS, we are dedicated to restoring our agencies to their tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science. As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, it’s important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans.’”

AP News: Trump Administration Cancels at Least 68 Grants Focused on LGBTQ Health Questions.

“Last week the U.S. government terminated at least 68 grants to 46 institutions totaling nearly $40 million when awarded, according to a government website. Some of the grant money has already been spent, but at least $1.36 million in future support was yanked as a result of the cuts, a significant undercount because estimates were available for less than a third of grants. Most were in some way related to sexual minorities, including research focused on HIV prevention. Other canceled studies centered on cancer, youth suicide and bone health… ‘We now no longer have anywhere studying LGBT cancer in the United States,’ said Rosser, who saw his grants canceled on Friday… ‘It’s a loss of a whole generation of science,’ Rosser said.”

STAT: NIH Cuts Halt 24-Year Program to Prevent HIV/Aids in Adolescents and Young Adults.

“During Donald Trump’s first term, he made it a goal to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. by 2030. That priority has fallen by the wayside in the second Trump administration, with the termination of a number of grants related to HIV in the past week. Most notable was the sudden withdrawal of $18 million per year for a program dedicated to understanding how to diagnose, treat, and prevent HIV infections and AIDS in adolescents and young adults, who account for about 19% of new infections annually in the U.S. On Friday, the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Intervention was notified that the two major grants that support its operations had been halted by the National Institutes of Health, in a move that legal experts say may be found illegal if it were challenged in court. Researchers say the loss of the program — during the third year of the seven-year grants — would mean ceasing research that could help expand the populations that might benefit from emerging treatments.”

ProPublica: NIH Ends Future Funding to Study the Health Effects of Climate Change.

“While it’s unclear whether the climate guidance will impact active grants and lead to funding terminations, the directive appears to halt opportunities for future funding of studies or academic programs focused on the health effects of climate change… She called the new guidance ‘catastrophic’ and said it would have a ‘devastating’ impact on much-needed research… The new NIH directive follows the Trump administration’s broader agenda to gut efforts to document and address climate change. Trump has paused billions of dollars of spending on climate-related causes. He has also issued executive orders aimed at increasing the production of fossil fuels and scaling back the government’s efforts to address climate change.”

Roll Call: Trump Cancels NIH Grants on Equity Research.

“The Trump administration is canceling dozens of National Institutes of Health grants funding health equity research, including work studying Black maternal and fetal health and HIV. Grantees were told in termination notices delivered over the last several days that their project ‘no longer effectuates agency priorities’ and that ‘so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) studies are often used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race…’ ‘The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries and ranks 54th for infant mortality,’ said Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine President Sindhu Srinivas. ‘Cutting research funding and critical public health programs that support perinatal care only serves to worsen this problem.’”

Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Over $165 Million in Grants to Arkansas Services to Be Terminated.

“The list of terminations includes 11 grants to the Arkansas Department of Health totalling $158 million. ‘The referenced funding was supplemental funding in immunizations, health disparities, and epidemiology and laboratory capacity funding,’ said Meg Mirivel, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Health. ‘We always understood these were temporary grants. The ADH is adjusting accordingly and is well equipped to serve Arkansans.’”

The Baltimore Banner: HHS Cuts Millions in Grants to Hopkins and University of Maryland, Baltimore.

“At least two dozen research grants at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and Johns Hopkins University have been terminated by the federal government in recent weeks amid President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity efforts.”
“‘We face challenging times for the patients and families that rely on us for cures and treatments, and for the researchers dedicated to the pursuit of improving the health of all Americans,’ Hopkins said in a statement. ‘These are cuts to research that will take away prevention strategies and treatments from American patients facing infectious and chronic diseases.’”

ashoup In News, Statement

STATEMENT: The Trump Administration Is Putting An Anti-Vax Quack Scientist and Fake Doctor In Charge of “Researching” Long-Debunked Claims That Vaccines Cause Autism

Paging Dr. Cassidy: Republicans Who Bought What RFK Jr. Was Selling Will Bear Responsibility For More Sick and Dead Americans.

Washington, D.C.— Donald Trump and RFK Jr. just took their boldest step yet to push their anti-vaccine agenda. According to reports, David Geier, a discredited researcher and vaccine skeptic, will lead a Department of Health and Human Services study into the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. The Maryland State Board of Physicians disciplined Geier for practicing without a medical license, as he had been improperly diagnosing and treating children with autism. A vocal anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, Geier’s protocols included Lupron, a hormone suppressor used for prostate cancer, precocious puberty, and to chemically castrate sex offenders. In addition, similar to RFK Jr., Geier has participated in anti-vaccine litigation against the federal government.

Geier’s disproven claims align with Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.’s absurd views on immunizations. During RFK’s confirmation process, he gave “assurances” to Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) that he would trust the science, but he immediately walked it all back when he got confirmed to lead HHS, ramping up his efforts to fuel disinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines.

In response, Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach issued the following statement:

“Senator Cassidy got played. After saying anything to Cassidy and other on-the-fence senators to get confirmed, RFK Jr. is escalating his efforts to undermine lifesaving vaccine access for the American people. David Geier is a quack who has previously been caught practicing medicine without a license, and now he is leading an HHS study on the dangerous, debunked claim that vaccines cause autism – all thanks to Senator Cassidy’s key vote. RFK Jr. and Donald Trump don’t care about children getting sick and dying from long-eradicated diseases.”

Washington Post: Vaccine Skeptic Hired to Head Federal Study of Immunizations and Autism

By Lena H. Sun and Fenit Nirappil // March 26, 2025

A vaccine skeptic who has long promoted false claims about the connection between immunizations and autism has been tapped by the federal government to conduct a critical study of possible links between the two, according to current and former federal health officials.

The Department of Health and Human Services has hired David Geier to conduct the analysis, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Geier and his father, Mark Geier, have published papers claiming vaccines increase the risk of autism, a theory that has been studied for decades and scientifically debunked.

David Geier was disciplined by Maryland regulators more than a decade ago for practicing medicine without a license. He is listed as a data analyst in the HHS employee directory.

Public health and autism experts fear that choosing a researcher who has promoted false claims will produce a flawed study with far-reaching consequences. They fear it will undermine the importance of the lifesaving inoculations and further damage trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The government’s premier public health agency has stressed vaccination as the safest and most effective measure to control the spread of some contagious diseases, including the growing measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico.

“It seems the goal of this administration is to prove that vaccines cause autism, even though they don’t,” said Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds autism research. “They are starting with the conclusion and looking to prove it. That’s not how science is done.”

President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have repeatedly linked vaccines to autism. Kennedy has often cited studies by David Geier and his father, a physician, asserting that their research reveals the negative effects of vaccines.

David Geier said in a brief telephone interview Tuesday he had no comment about whether he has a role in the study, how he was hired, and whether he holds the same views about vaccines and autism as described in his previous research.

“I don’t have any comment to say,” he said. “Talk to the secretary. He’s the person that’s in charge.”

HHS and CDC officials did not respond to emails requesting comment.

Jessica Steier, a public health researcher who leads the nonprofit Science Literacy Lab that scrutinizes research on high-profile health topics, said that the Geiers’ research is riddled with basic flaws and that the pair have “demonstrated patterns of an anti-vaccine agenda.”

“This is a worst-case scenario for public health,” Steier said. “It’s a slap in the face to the decades of actual credible research we have.”

HHS instructed the CDC in early March to conduct the vaccine-autism study. The request came two days after Trump, in an address to a joint session to Congress, described the growing prevalence of autism in American children.

But in recent weeks, HHS officials directed the CDC to turn over vaccine safety data to the National Institutes of Health so that agency could conduct the analysis instead, according to three current and one former federal health officials. Geier was identified as the person who “would be the one analyzing the data,” said one official.

It’s unclear why HHS officials turned to NIH to conduct the study. Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has long criticized the CDC and, in particular, vaccine safety.

During Kennedy’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) pressed Kennedy to publicly disavow his past claims about vaccines and autism. Kennedy replied he would do so if presented with data disproving the link, despite the overwhelming body of research that already does.

The information that the CDC has turned over to NIH includes the underlying data from four studies on vaccines and autism published in the 2000s, three current officials said. None of the papers found any link.

Nor have more than two dozen other studies, including a decade-long study of a half-million children in Denmark published in 2019. It showed the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine does not increase the risk of autism, lending strong statistical evidence to what was already medical consensus.

Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and author of a book about his daughter’s autism, said the federal government should focus money and attention on the roles of genetics and early brain development in the condition.

Instead, Hotez said, the agencies are repurposing scarce research dollars that leave “all the oxygen sucked out of the room over phony autism links.”

It’s not clear how or why Geier, who is not a physician and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, was chosen.

Since the 2000s, the Geiers published some studies suggesting a link between thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines that drew public concern, and autism. The preservative had largely been excised from childhood vaccines by 2001.

The journal Science and Engineering Ethics retracted a 2015 paper co-authored by the Geiers that contended public health officials have conflicts of interest in studying whether mercury exposure triggers autism. The journal cited errors and failures to disclose the authors’ own conflicts of interest, including the Geiers’ involvement in a mercury-free-drugs coalition.

In a 2015 interview at a gathering of AutismOne, an organization that promotes the discredited link between vaccines and the condition, David Geier described CDC research on vaccines as compromised. He said the federal government sees its role as increasing vaccine uptake and quashing research that undermines immunization.

“This seems to be ubiquitous, that the government scientists are assigned to do a study, and invariably they find harm,” he said.

In addition to conducting research, Geier helped people who claimed injuries from vaccines seek compensation from the federal government and co-founded an organization that sued federal health officials, alleging harm from the use of thimerosal.

He was charged with practicing medicine without a license in May 2011, just weeks after his father’s license was suspended for allegedly putting autistic children at risk.

The Maryland Board of Physicians said Geier worked with his father using a hormonal drug therapy for prostate cancer and early-onset puberty to treat autistic children. Autism experts say the treatment is unproven and based on the debunked link to mercury in vaccines.

Mark Geier did not respond to a request for comment. An attorney for the Geiers said in 2011 that the treatment may be considered “crazy” but works on especially difficult patients.

The regulators said David Geier improperly played a role in the medical care, and parents assumed he was a doctor. Geier contended his role was administrative.

Then-Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) ousted Geier from a state commission on autism in 2011, saying he was not qualified to serve as a “diagnostician” on the panel.

The Geiers later sued state officials for publicly disclosing private medical information about the family, alleging they did so to embarrass them. A judge sided with the Geiers and ordered officials at the Board of Physicians to pay them millions, but an appellate court overturned the penalties.

In recent years, David and Mark Geier have targeted the use of mercury-containing amalgam fillings in dental care and promoted removal of those fillings.

The American Dental Association says dental amalgam is durable, safe and effective, and removing the fillings to replace them with materials that do not contain mercury is “unwarranted.” In recently published papers about dental amalgams, the Geiers disclosed owning shares in a company developing treatments for “mercury intoxication.” The company is led by a proponent of the claim that vaccines cause autism.

In interviews in 2022, the Geiers described their focus on mercury in dental fillings as a natural outgrowth of their examination of mercury in vaccines.

ashoup In News

NEW REPORT: Republicans Are Trading Our Health Care for Tax Breaks for Billionaires

Read the Full Report Here.

Washington, D.C. – Today, Protect Our Care is releasing a new report holding Republicans accountable for putting profits over people during their ongoing war on the American health care system. Republicans passed a budget that cuts nearly a trillion from Medicaid, putting more than 72 million Americans who count on Medicaid at risk of losing health care coverage. At the same time, they are trying to raise costs on millions of hard-working families by ending the cost-saving tax credits. As a result, insurance premiums would increase by an average of 90 percent and 5 million people would lose their health coverage. Donald Trump and Republicans are also endangering millions of lives by making indiscriminate cuts to our public health infrastructure, sabotaging the integral health care systems, such as the Affordable Care Act, and installing anti-vaccine zealot RFK Jr. as Secretary of HHS. Recent polling from Hart Research and Protect Our Care found there is broad opposition across party lines to major elements of the Republican health care agenda.

“Republicans are waging a full-scale war on American health care at the expense of hard-working families across the nation,” said Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach. “Their agenda is crystal clear: give tax breaks to billionaires by ripping away health care, leaving the American people, including their own constituents and voters, behind. Between slashing Medicaid and taking away health care tax credits, they continue to put profits over people and line the pockets of their friends like Elon Musk and big corporations. The American people want and deserve better.”

Report Key Points:

Here’s a closer look at what’s in store if Republicans get their way:

Slashing almost a trillion dollars from Medicaid, forcing people to choose between health care and putting food on the table. In every state, hundreds of thousands of seniors, children, and working families could lose their health insurance thanks to Republican plans to cut almost a trillion dollars from Medicaid.
Imposing burdensome work requirements for people on Medicaid: Republicans’ latest proposal of burdensome work requirements has one goal: make it harder for people to qualify for Medicaid, slash benefits, and deny up to 36 million people access to health care so they can fund more tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. Work requirements only increase the red tape that hard-working families must go through to obtain affordable health care.
Hiking premium costs: Millions of families who use private health insurance saved an average of $2,400 per year on their premiums thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act’s advanced premium tax credits, but Republicans want to end these savings and raise costs for over 24 million Americans.
Ripping away protections for people with pre-existing conditions: The GOP plans to repeal and sabotage the ACA, meaning the 135 million people with pre-existing conditions like asthma, cancer, and diabetes would lose critical protections that prevent insurance companies from charging them higher premiums or denying their coverage.
Raising prescription drug prices: Republicans want to once again give drug companies full control of padding their profits by banning Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. This would raise government spending and increase costs for seniors and their families.
Stopping medical research, and stopping medical debt relief: Over the first three months of his administration, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have increased the prices of prescription drugs, including cancer and heart medications as well as vital antibiotics, delayed implementation of a Biden administration rule that barred medical debt from showing on credit reports, cut NIH grants, halted all studies and activities within the NIH relating in any capacity to LGBTQ+ health, including active research programs, and violated court orders to halt funding freezes to organizations like the NIH.
Keeping insulin costs high: Republicans rejected legislation to cap insulin costs for millions of people with diabetes nationwide. Now they want to raise costs for seniors by repealing the cap for people who rely on Medicare. As many as one in four of the 7.5 million Americans dependent on insulin are skipping or skimping on doses, a life-threatening practice no one in this country should have to bear.

ashoup In News

NEW ADS: Protect Our Care Launches Spanish-Language Ads About Damage GOP Medicaid Cuts Would Have on Hispanic Communities

Listen to All the Radio Ads Here.

Washington, D.C. – Protect Our Care is launching new Spanish-language radio ads featuring two women discussing the impact Republican Medicaid cuts will have on their families and communities. The new six-figure radio ad buy targets high reach, Spanish-language radio stations in seven Republican-held swing districts with significant Latino populations.

This Spanish-language ad buy is part of Protect Our Care’s ongoing 10-million-dollar “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign. The latest campaign activities also include TV, digital, and radio ads featuring a Trump voter and certified nursing assistant who is against Republican cuts to Medicaid, as well as a plan to launch direct mail in 10 Republican swing districts.

Recently, several Republican members of Congress wrote a letter highlighting the damage that Medicaid cuts would do to Latino communities, saying “slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that this Republican budget would require the largest Medicaid cut in history.

“The Republican effort to gut a program that one in three Latinos rely on for health care will have devastating impacts on Hispanic communities nationwide,” said Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach. “These ads expose Republicans for turning their backs on their Latino constituents just to give tax cuts to billionaires and big companies. Seniors in nursing homes, half of all Latino children, people with disabilities, and working families could lose access to care. These cuts will exacerbate financial instability in Latino communities and make nursing homes and hospitals more likely to close their doors. Latinos across the country are counting on Republicans to do the right thing and abandon these cuts to Medicaid.”

A recent report from UnidosUS makes it clear that cuts to Medicaid would have devastating consequences Latino families around the country: Medicaid covers one in three Latinos and half of all Latino children. Republicans’ plan to slash $880 billion in Medicaid funding would strip health insurance from millions of Latinos and take away their access to essential care, exacerbating health inequities and raising costs for working families at a time when too many struggle to make ends meet. Polling suggests Latino voters have overwhelmingly favorable views of Medicaid and disapprove of Republicans’ plans to gut Medicaid.

The ads will launch in the following districts: David Schweikert (AZ-01), David Valadao (CA-22), Young Kim (CA-40), Ken Calvert (CA-41), Andrew Garbarino (NY-02), Rob Bresnahan (PA-08), and Dan Newhouse (WA-04).

Links to each of the minute-long radio ads can be found below:
David Schweikert (AZ-01)
David Valadao (CA-22)
Young Kim (CA-40)
Ken Calvert (CA-41)
Andrew Garbarino (NY-02)
Rob Bresnahan (PA-08)
Dan Newhouse (WA-04)

Sample Radio Ad Script for PA-08 – “On Our Side”:

Female Narrator 1: Con todas las cosas que estamos enfrentando cada día, ¿te imaginas si mis hijos se quedarán sin seguro médico? Si los republicanos en el Congreso logran aprobar su plan para recortar Medicaid, más de la mitad de nuestros hijos podrían perder su cuidado médico.
[English: With everything we are facing every day, can you imagine if my kids’ health care coverage got taken away? If Republicans in Congress are able to pass their plan to cut Medicaid, more than half of our kids could lose their health care.]

Female Narrator 2: Entonces, ¿qué pasaría la próxima vez que se enfermen?
[English: So what would happen next time they get sick?]

Female Narrator 1: A mí no me alcanza para pagar su seguro.
[English: I can’t afford to pay for their insurance.]

Female Narrator 2: Recortar Medicaid también significa que nuestros viejitos que necesitan cuidado médico a largo plazo perderán este beneficio.
[English: Cuts to Medicaid also mean that our elders in long-term care could lose health care too.]

Female Narrator 1: Uno de cada tres hispanos dependen de Medicaid, estos recortes serían un ataque directo contra nosotros.
[English: One out of three Hispanics rely on Medicaid – so cutting it would be a direct attack against us.]

Female Narrator 2: Mientras tanto los Republicanos en el Congreso aprueban otro recorte de impuestos para los multimillonarios.
[English: All while Republicans in Congress pass yet another tax cut for multimillionaires.]

Female Narrator 1: ¡Esto es una desgracia!
[English: This is a disgrace.]

Female Narrator 2: ¿Y el Congresista Bresnahan estará de nuestro lado? ¿O votará para quitarnos nuestro seguro médico? Llámalo al 202-225-5546 y dile que detenga los recortes a Medicaid. Pagado por Save My Care.
[English: Will Congressman Bresnahan be on our side? Or will he vote to take away our healthcare coverage? Call him at 202-225-5546 – Tell him to stop the cuts to Medicaid. Paid for by Save My Care.]

Sample Direct Mail Piece for PA-08:

NUEVOS ANUNCIOS: Protect Our Care Lanza Anuncios en Español Sobre el Daño que los Recortes Republicanos a Medicaid Tendrían en las Comunidades Hispanas

Escucha todos los anuncios de radio aquí.

Washington, D.C. – Protect Our Care está lanzando nuevos anuncios de radio en español que presentan a dos mujeres hablando sobre el impacto que los recortes republicanos a Medicaid tendrán en sus familias y comunidades. La nueva inversión de seis cifras en anuncios de radio se dirige a estaciones de radio en español de alta audiencia en siete distritos indecisos, controlados por republicanos, con poblaciones latinas significativas.

Esta compra de anuncios en español es parte de la campaña en curso de 10 millones de dólares “Hands Off Medicaid” (Medicaid No Se Toca) de Protect Our Care. Las últimas actividades de campaña también incluyen anuncios de televisión, digitales y de radio presentando a un votante de Trump y un asistente de enfermería certificado que está en contra de los recortes republicanos a Medicaid, así como un plan para el lanzamiento de correo directo en 10 distritos republicanos indecisos.

Recientemente, varios miembros republicanos del Congreso escribieron una carta destacando el daño que los recortes de Medicaid harían a las comunidades latinas, diciendo que “recortar Medicaid tendría graves consecuencias”. La Oficina de Presupuesto del Congreso, una organización no partidista, informa que este presupuesto republicano requeriría el mayor recorte de Medicaid de la historia.

“El esfuerzo republicano para desmantelar un programa del que uno de cada tres latinos depende para recibir atención médica tendrá impactos devastadores en las comunidades hispanas de todo el país”, dijo el presidente de Protect Our Care, Leslie Dach. “Estos anuncios exponen a los republicanos por dar la espalda a sus electores latinos sólo para recortar impuestos a los multimillonarios y a las grandes empresas. Ancianos en asilos, la mitad de todos los niños latinos, personas con discapacidades y familias trabajadoras podrían perder el acceso a la atención de salud. Estos recortes exacerbarán la inestabilidad financiera en las comunidades latinas y harán más probable que los hogares de ancianos y hospitales cierren sus puertas. Los latinos de todo el país cuentan con que los republicanos hagan lo correcto y abandonen estos recortes a Medicaid”.

Un informe reciente de UnidosUS deja en claro que los recortes a Medicaid tendrían consecuencias devastadoras para las familias latinas de todo el país: Medicaid cubre a uno de cada tres latinos y a la mitad de todos los niños latinos. El plan de los republicanos de recortar $880 mil millones en fondos de Medicaid despojaría del seguro médico a millones de latinos y les quitaría el acceso a la atención esencial, exacerbando las desigualdades de salud y aumentando los costos para las familias trabajadoras en un momento en que muchos luchan por llegar a fin de mes. Las encuestas sugieren que los votantes latinos tienen opiniones abrumadoramente favorables de Medicaid y desaprueban los planes de los republicanos para desmantelar Medicaid.

Los anuncios se lanzarán en los siguientes distritos: David Schweikert (AZ-01), David Valadao (CA-22), Young Kim (CA-40), Ken Calvert (CA-41), Andrew Garbarino (NY-02), Rob Bresnahan (PA-08) y Dan Newhouse (WA-04).

Los enlaces a cada uno de los anuncios de radio de un minuto de duración se pueden encontrar a continuación:
David Schweikert (AZ-01)
David Valadao (CA-22)
Young Kim (CA-40)
Ken Calvert (CA-41)
Andrew Garbarino (NY-02)
Rob Bresnahan (PA-08)
Dan Newhouse (WA-04)

Ejemplo de Guión de Anuncio de Radio para PA-08 – “De nuestro lado”:

Narradora 1: Con todas las cosas que estamos enfrentando cada día, ¿te imaginas si mis hijos se quedarán sin seguro médico? Si los republicanos en el Congreso logran aprobar su plan para recortar Medicaid, más de la mitad de nuestros hijos podrían perder su cuidado médico.
[English: With everything we are facing every day, can you imagine if my kids’ health care coverage got taken away? If Republicans in Congress are able to pass their plan to cut Medicaid, more than half of our kids could lose their health care.]

Narradora 2: Entonces, ¿qué pasaría la próxima vez que se enfermen?
[English: So what would happen next time they get sick?]

Narradora 1: A mí no me alcanza para pagar su seguro.
[English: I can’t afford to pay for their insurance.]

Narradora 2: Recortar Medicaid también significa que nuestros viejitos que necesitan cuidado médico a largo plazo perderán este beneficio.
[English: Cuts to Medicaid also mean that our elders in long-term care could lose health care too.]

Narradora 1: Uno de cada tres hispanos dependen de Medicaid, estos recortes serían un ataque directo contra nosotros.
[English: One out of three Hispanics rely on Medicaid – so cutting it would be a direct attack against us.]

Narradora 2: Mientras tanto los Republicanos en el Congreso aprueban otro recorte de impuestos para los multimillonarios.
[English: All while Republicans in Congress pass yet another tax cut for multimillionaires.]

Narradora 1: ¡Esto es una desgracia!
[English: This is a disgrace.]

Narradora 2: ¿Y el Congresista Bresnahan estará de nuestro lado? ¿O votará para quitarnos nuestro seguro médico? Llámalo al 202-225-5546 y dile que detenga los recortes a Medicaid. Pagado por Save My Care.
[English: Will Congressman Bresnahan be on our side? Or will he vote to take away our healthcare coverage? Call him at 202-225-5546 – Tell him to stop the cuts to Medicaid. Paid for by Save My Care.]

Ejemplo de pieza de correo directo para PA-08:

ashoup In News

Medicaid is a Lifeline for Rural Communities, Republicans Want to Abandon Them to Pay for Tax Breaks for Billionaires

Twenty percent of the US population – about 66.3 million Americans – live in rural areas across the country, and around one in five of those Americans – over 12 million – are enrolled in Medicaid, including 47 percent of children in rural areas. Medicaid is a vital source of coverage for people across rural America, who are more likely to lack insurance, experience negative health outcomes, and encounter more barriers to accessing care. Rural communities generally also have lower rates of employer-sponsored coverage. Medicaid has built a foundation for resilience and remains vital for the growth and prosperity of rural families and their communities.

But Republicans are leaving rural Americans behind. By passing a budget that cuts nearly $1 trillion dollars from Medicaid to fund tax breaks for billionaires and the ultra-wealthy, Republicans are putting profits over people.

Protect Our Care is continuing its “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign with theme weeks to underscore the importance of Medicaid across the country. Alongside partners, lawmakers, and other advocates, Protect Our Care is working to defend Medicaid from the Republican-led plan to slash funding to pay for another round of tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. This week’s focus is the importance of Medicaid for rural Americans. Read more here.

If Republican Plans Succeed

Millions Of Rural Americans Depend On Medicaid. Over 12 million people on Medicaid reside in rural communities across the country.
Medicaid Helps To Maintain And Strengthen Rural Economies. Hospitals employ 10 percent of all employees in rural counties that report having any hospital employment. When rural hospitals close, communities can lose a staggering number of jobs, both within and outside of the health care sector. The closure of one rural hospital can eliminate 220 jobs immediately with ripple effects impacting thousands more.
Rural Americans Are Increasingly Isolated From Quality And Affordable Care. A 2023 NICHM study found that around 80 percent of rural Americans are medically underserved and that 12 percent of rural residents have to drive 60 minutes or more to the nearest hospital. Between 1999 and 2015, the rate of accidental death was almost 50 percent higher in rural areas than in urban areas with the CDC citing the distance between hospital facilities in rural areas.
Medicaid Is A Lifeline For Moms in Rural Communities. Medicaid covers 41 percent of births in the United States and pays for a greater share of births in rural areas than any other source of coverage. A majority of all births in several Republican-controlled states including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma – which all have disproportionately larger rural populations, are covered by Medicaid.
Rural States Rely On Medicaid To Provide Affordable Health Care. Uninsurance rates in rural America are 2 to 3 percentage points higher than in urban areas. States that expanded Medicaid experienced a 7-point increase in insured rates after the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Medicaid Keeps Rural Hospitals Open, Republicans Want Them Closed. Between 2010 and 2022, over 130 rural hospitals closed. Since 2020, 36 rural hospitals have closed and as of 2025 around 768 rural hospitals were found to be at risk of closing in the near future. A 2016 analysis that identified 673 rural hospitals at risk of closing estimated that if those hospitals shut down, 99,000 health care jobs in rural communities would be lost.

Rural Hospital Closures by State

Rural hospitals have consistently seen higher rates of uncompensated care, especially in states that have refused to expand Medicaid where uncompensated care is nearly 2.5 times higher than in expansion states. Across the board, states that have refused to expand Medicaid have seen worse rural hospital outcomes, more hospital closures, and worse overall care than in states that have expanded Medicaid. This disparity of access to care for rural Americans can be seen at all levels of the rural hospital closure crisis, and studies continue to suggest that expanding Medicaid in all 50 states could be the largest driver in slowing down emergency closures.

Data as of April 2024.

State

Hospital Closures Since 2005

Hospitals At Risk of Closing*

Hospitals at Immediate Risk of Closing**

Number of Rural Hospitals Left

Has This State Expanded Medicaid?

Alabama

Alaska

Yes (2015)

Arizona

Yes (2014)

Arkansas

Yes (2014)

California

Yes (2014)

Colorado

Yes (2014)

Connecticut

Yes (2014)

Delaware

Yes (2014)

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Yes (2014)

Idaho

Yes (2020)

Illinois

Yes (2014)

Indiana

Yes (2015)

Iowa

Yes (2014)

Kansas

101

Kentucky

Yes (2014)

Louisiana

Yes (2016)

Maine

Yes (2019)

Maryland

Yes (2014)

Massachusetts

Yes (2014)

Michigan

Yes (2014)

Minnesota

Yes (2014)

Mississippi

Missouri

Yes (2021)

Montana

Yes (2016)

Nebraska

Yes (2020)

Nevada

Yes (2014)

New Hampshire

Yes (2014)

New Jersey

Yes (2014)

New Mexico

Yes (2014)

New York

Yes (2014)

North Carolina

Yes (2023)

North Dakota

Yes (2014)

Ohio

Yes (2014)

Oklahoma

Yes (2021)

Oregon

Yes (2014)

Pennsylvania

Yes (2015)

Rhode Island

Yes (2014)

South Carolina

South Dakota

Yes (2023)

Tennessee

Texas

159

Utah

Yes (2020)

Vermont

Yes (2014)

Virginia

Yes (2019)

Washington

Yes (2014)

West Virginia

Yes (2014)

Wisconsin

Wyoming

*These hospitals do not have adequate net assets to offset their losses on patient services for more than 6-7 years
**These hospitals do not have adequate net assets to offset their losses on patient services for more than 2-3 years

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NUEVOS ANUNCIOS: Protect Our Care Lanza Anuncios en Español Sobre el Daño que los Recortes Republicanos a Medicaid Tendrían en las Comunidades Hispanas

Medicaid is a Lifeline for Rural Communities, Republicans Want to Abandon Them to Pay for Tax Breaks for Billionaires

State

Hospital Closures Since 2005

Hospitals At Risk of Closing*

Hospitals at Immediate Risk of Closing**

Number of Rural Hospitals Left

Has This State Expanded Medicaid?

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