Sen. Ron Wyden Seeks Answers on RFK Jr.’s Purge of FOIA Staff

The Department of Health and Human Services’ mass dismissals of workers who release government records “raise grave transparency, accountability, and privacy concerns,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday. In a May 8 letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. provided exclusively to KFF Health News, Wyden, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance…

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Congress passes Full-Year Continuing Resolution Bill, maintaining global health funding at prior year levels

On March 15, 2025, the President signed a full-year “continuing resolution” (CR) that continues funding the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year. It maintains U.S. global health funding at the prior year (FY 2024) level ($10.8 billion).[i] The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, which was passed by the House on…More

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Speculation on RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary

From Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution: One of the problems with an RFK Jr. ascendancy is that his core views, which run strongly against vaccines and pharmaceuticals, make it unlikely that any of these reimbursement revisions will be done in a rational or scientific way. The best evidence indicates that pharmaceuticals are a relatively cost-effective ways of saving…

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Public Health Departments Face a Post-Covid Funding Crash

During the coronavirus pandemic, states received a rush of funding from the federal government to bolster their fight against the disease. In many cases, that cash flowed into state and local health departments, fueling a staffing surge to handle, among other things, contact tracing and vaccination efforts. But public health leaders quickly identified a familiar…

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How Many Uninsured Are in the Coverage Gap and How Many Could be Eligible if All States Adopted the Medicaid Expansion?

This analysis estimates that 1.4 million uninsured individuals in the ten states without Medicaid expansion, including many working adults, people of color, and those with disabilities, remain in the “coverage gap,” ineligible for Medicaid or for tax credits that would make coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s Marketplaces affordable to them.

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