In the News

The American College of Radiology has thrown its support behind new bipartisan legislation that seeks to shore up enforcement of the No Surprises Act, which aims to protect patients from surprise medical bills.

House Energy & Commerce Republicans held a hearing Wednesday (July 16) to discuss a series of bills aimed at strengthening rural health care -- an effort that committee Democrats told Inside Health Policy is nothing more than damage control amid mounting backlash over the GOP’s near $1 trillion Medicaid cut in their recently passed reconciliation package.

While Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth’s gross incompetence take up a lot of air time, RFK Jr. is actually the cabinet appointment I worry the most about. As the head of Health and Human Services, he oversees the CDC, FDA, and NIH, among other departments. He’s gutting medical research and, as an outspoken anti-vax grifter, firing experienced vaccine researchers. So I reached out to Congresswoman Kim Schrier, an experienced pediatrician and representative of the Washington 8th, to ask her your (and my!) questions about what’s going on. We discussed:

Washington Democratic Congress members are demanding answers after the Trump administration froze billions of dollars of education funding nationwide, including nearly $137 million meant for the Evergreen State’s public schools. U.S. Rep. Marilyn Strickland led her colleagues in writing a letter advocating for the release of those federal funds to Washington by Aug. 1. 

MALTBY, Wash. — As President Donald Trump celebrates the passage of his sweeping “Big Beautiful Bill,” some Washington leaders are warning of serious consequences for the state’s most vulnerable residents. 

Now signed into law, the president’s budget includes $186 billion in cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade — reductions that some argue will hit rural communities especially hard.

The Trump administration’s new vaccine advisers endorsed this fall’s flu vaccines late last week, but only those that don’t contain the ingredient thimerosal, which has been falsely linked to autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The panel is also recommending that infants receive a shot to protect them against the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

WASHINGTON — Actions by a vaccine advisory panel hand-picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are putting Louisiana U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s reputation on Capitol Hill in a precarious position.

For 30 years, Republican Cassidy, once a physician at Baton Rouge’s charity hospital, advocated the safety and efficacy of vaccines to treat disease and save lives. During that same time, Kennedy raised doubts about these inoculations.

President Donald Trump’s appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a decades-long vaccine skeptic, as secretary of health and human services (HHS) is already undermining public trust in highly safe and effective vaccines.