Blog | 8/22/2025

Trump Administration Healthcare News: August 22, 2025

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

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

This issue reflects news as of 11 AM on August 21, 2025. The details and broad themes may have changed.

KEY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEWS

What's in the leaked draft of the MAHA Commission's report?

  • The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., submitted a draft strategy to the White House last week detailing its approach to children's chronic disease.
  • The document points out poor diets, pesticide exposure, and overmedication — but stops short of the bans and strict limits Kennedy once championed.
  • A major focus of the draft report is what it calls the "overmedicalization" of American children. The draft report proposes:
    • A new HHS working group to evaluate prescription trends for stimulants, SSRIs, and antipsychotics
    • Tighter prior authorization rules for Medicaid prescriptions
    • A review of ADHD and mental health prescription patterns using Veterans Affairs data
  • The draft report also targets vaccines, saying that HHS will develop a framework to ensure "America has the best Childhood Vaccine Schedule" and address "vaccine injuries."
  • Like the first MAHA report, the new draft report calls for more research into the impact of water fluoridation and electromagnetic radiation from technology on people's health.
  • Analysis: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2025/08/19/maha-draft
  • Leaked draft: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000198-adc3-d0bd-a1db-bfdb703d0000

CMS Announces Plan to Disenroll Noncitizens From Medicaid and CHIP

NIH chief calls for immediate research review, dangling threat of project termination

  • Jayanta Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has called on the agency’s scientific leadership to immediately review all of their current and planned research activities to identify those that don’t align with agency priorities, according to an Aug. 15 internal memo obtained by Fierce Biotech.
  • Activities that don’t align with those priorities, which Bhattacharya outlined in the same document, "may be restricted, paused, not renewed or terminated," he wrote.
  • When possible, staff are “encouraged to renegotiate programs and projects to ensure their compliance,” the NIH director wrote. “Please ensure the directives in this memo are implemented without delay.”
  • The priorities, part of a "unified strategy," are also shared in a director's statement published Aug. 15, but this page omits any mention of the internal review.
  • https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/nih-chief-calls-immediate-research-review-dangling-threat-project-termination

CBO: Reconciliation package could lead to $500B in Medicare cuts over next decade

  • A new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warns that Republicans' massive tax bill could lead to hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicare over the next 10 years.
  • CBO analysts, in a letter to key Democratic senators Friday, dug into the potential impact the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could have on federal programs under the Statutory Pay‑As‑You‑Go Act of 2010, which requires that new legislation enacted by Congress be budget neutral and is enforced under automatic cuts known as "sequestration."
  • The letter notes that reductions in Medicare spending would be limited to $45 billion in 2026, with about $370 billion to be sequestered from the federal budget. That rate would remain in effect for future years, according to the letter.
  • The nonpartisan budget office notes that similar cuts would also extend to other federal entitlement programs.
  • Press: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/cbo-reconciliation-package-could-lead-500b-medicare-cuts-over-next-decade
  • CBO analysis: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61659
  • CBO letter: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-08/61659-SPAYGO.pdf

How Deeply Trump Has Cut Federal Health Agencies

  • When the Trump administration announced massive cuts to federal health agencies earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was getting rid of excess administrators who were larding the government with bureaucratic bloat.
  • But a groundbreaking data analysis by ProPublica shows the administration has cut deeper than it has acknowledged. Though Kennedy said he would add scientists to the workforce, agencies have lost thousands of them, along with colleagues who those scientists depended on to dispatch checks, fix computers and order lab supplies, enabling them to do their jobs.
  • Over 1,000 regulators and safety inspectors have also left.
  • In total, more than 20,500 workers, or about 18% of the Department of Health and Human Services’ workforce, have left or been pushed out, according to ProPublica’s analysis of federal worker departures using public information from the HHS employee directory.
  • The analysis is an undercount — it doesn’t include the hundreds or even thousands of workers who have received layoff notices but remain on administrative leave.
    • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in charge of public health, lost 15% of its staff
    • The National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, 16%
    • The Food and Drug Administration, which ensures the safety of most of what goes into people’s bodies — from baby formula to cancer drugs to hip implants — 21%.
  • https://projects.propublica.org/federal-health-worker-cuts-rfk-trump-administration

CMS ‘Chili Cookoff’ Challenge Solicits AI Solutions To Tackle Medicare Fraud

HHS launches interactive platform

  • HHS has launched Make America Healthy Again in Action, an interactive platform to track state- and federal-level reforms driven by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump’s MAHA agenda.
  • “The MAHA in Action tracker puts the wins on the map,” Mr. Kennedy said in an Aug. 18 news release shared with Becker’s. “It gives the public, the press and policymakers real-time visibility into how we’re restoring health, integrity and accountability to every corner of our public health agency.”
  • The platform features real-time updates on HSS’ efforts to improve health, food and public safety systems across the U.S. It aims to showcase progress on initiatives, like closing “generally recognized as safe” loopholes, removing food additives, reconstituting HHS’ vaccine advisory committee and investigating the “root cause” of autism.
  • MAHA in Action also comprises an interactive map that follows Mr. Kennedy’s MAHA Tours, which consist of state visits that have already kickstarted certain reforms.
  • Press: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/hhs-launches-interactive-platform/
  • HHS Press: https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-launches-maha-in-action-tracker.html

Joint Statement on a United States-European Union Framework on an Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade

  • The United States and the European Union are pleased to announce that they have agreed on a Framework on an Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade (“Framework Agreement”).
  • This Framework Agreement represents a concrete demonstration of our commitment to fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial trade and investment.
  • The United States and the European Union intend this Framework Agreement to be a first step in a process that can be further expanded over time to cover additional areas and continue to improve market access and increase their trade and investment relationship.
  • The United States commits to apply the higher of either the U.S. Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariff rate or a tariff rate of 15 percent, comprised of the MFN tariff and a reciprocal tariff, on originating goods of the European Union. Additionally, effective as of 1 September 2025, the United States commits to apply only the MFN tariff to the following products of the European Union: unavailable natural resources (including cork), all aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals and their ingredients and chemical precursors.
  • The United States intends to promptly ensure that the tariff rate, comprised of the MFN tariff and the tariff imposed pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, applied to originating goods of the European Union subject to Section 232 actions on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber does not exceed 15 percent.
  • https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/08/joint-statement-on-a-united-states-european-union-framework-on-an-agreement-on-reciprocal-fair-and-balanced-trade/

KEY REVERSALS – RESCINDED ITEMS

Trump revokes Biden executive order on competition impacting healthcare markets

KEY LAWSUITS

HHS seeks to dismiss Rhode Island lawsuit over reorganization plans

  • HHS has asked a Rhode Island federal court to dismiss a case brought by attorneys general from 19 states and Washington, DC, over the government’s plan to restructure federal health agencies.
  • Attorneys for HHS on Friday argued that “plaintiffs’ claims fail on numerous threshold grounds,” including that they lack standing to challenge the restructuring and reductions in force. HHS also said that “setting aside these threshold and jurisdictional defects, plaintiffs’ claims fail on the merits.”
  • The lawsuit challenges HHS’ announcement in March that it would consolidate 28 divisions into 15 and reduce staff by 10,000 full-time employees.
  • HHS said at the time that the action, alongside other efforts, would lead to a total reduction in force of about 20,000 staffers.
  • The agency has said the cuts would make it “more efficient and more responsive to Americans’ needs,” but the states claim that “the consequences are severe, complicated and potentially irreversible.”
  • https://endpoints.news/hhs-seeks-to-dismiss-rhode-island-lawsuit-over-reorganization-plans/  (subscription required for full text)

KEY ACRONYMS

  • ADHD = Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
  • CBO = Congressional Budget Office
  • CHIP = Children's Health Insurance Program
  • CMS = Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • DME = Durable Medical Equipment
  • DOJ = Department of Justice
  • EO = Executive Order
  • FFS = Medicare Fee-for-Service
  • FTC = Federal Trade Commission
  • HHS = Department of Health and Human Services
  • MAHA = Make America Healthy Again
  • MFN = most favored nation
  • NIH = National Institutes of Health

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