cms
The proud penny-pincher running Medicare
Chris Klomp, Medicare's new head, is notoriously frugal, and he's about to apply that thrift to a program that spends more than $1 trillion annually on health care, according to STAT's Mario Aguilar.
The decisions facing Klomp include whether to rein in abusive coding and denials practices by private Medicare Advantage plans, whether to reform how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, and whether to pay for expensive weight-loss drugs.
Read Mario's profile for more of what one interviewee called "Chris Klomp cheap-o stories."
vaccines
Injecting uncertainty into shots
FDA is not immune to Kennedy's vaccine hesitancy. That's the overarching message in a pair of stories by Helen Branswell and Lizzy Lawrence.
Over the weekend, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary took to social media to defend the FDA's controversial delay in approving Novavax's Covid-19 vaccine. In so doing, he seemed to imply that the agency might require clinical trials for Covid-19 annual booster shots, which would likely result in drugmakers no longer making booster shots for the virus.
Helen tried in vain to get HHS to clarify what Makary meant.
Makary's statement is the latest example of the FDA inching toward vaccine criticism, according to experts to whom Lizzy spoke. The agency has been moving in that direction both with its rhetoric and now, potentially, with its approval standards.
tariffs
Device makers find shelter from tariffs
Medical device makers seem to be weathering Trump's trade war so far, reports Bob Herman.
There are a few big reasons that this particular sector is faring better than others amid the explosion of tariffs. Many products, including their raw materials, are made domestically. Those that aren't often are exempted from tariffs. And Bob found one company, Intuitive Surgical, that doesn't really face competition for a service that's indispensable to hospitals and surgeons.
Bob listened to several company investor calls so you wouldn't have to. Read his rundown here.
transgender health
Trump poised to issue transgender health report
O. Rose Broderick reports that the Trump administration is set to release a report summarizing what it has done to target the trans community and trans healthcare, including ending 215 health grants totaling more than $477 million, pushing medical professionals to stop using internationally recognized standards of care, and ending federal health benefits coverage for the "mutilation of the children."
Many experts expect the document, announced in an executive order published Monday, to resemble the "Cass Review," a lengthy overview of health care for trans youth in England that has been decried by researchers and advocates for failing to provide an adequate picture of gender-affirming care.
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