White House unveils budget proposal with $33B in cuts to HHS

The Trump administration on Friday released its "skinny budget" proposal for FY 2026, which seeks $93.8 billion for HHS, marking a $33 billion decrease over the FY 2025 enacted budget. Specifically, the proposal would cut $18 billion from NIH, $3.6 billion from CDC, $674 million from CMS, $1.1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and $129 million from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The proposal also calls for new funding for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Administration for a Healthy America, which would receive $500 million to focus on issues related to nutrition, exercise, environmental issues, food and drug safety, and "over-reliance" on medication.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she has "serious objections" to parts of the proposal, including cuts to biomedical research and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides around $4 billion a year to help people pay for heating and cooling their homes.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the budget would "rip away the services that millions of Americans rely on, leaving families less safe and less healthy."

"The only winners here will be corporations wanting to pollute your clean air and drinking water and rich tax cheats," Wyden said. "One hundred days in, the Trump administration is doubling down on its agenda to help corporations and billionaires get wealthier while everyone else gets left behind."

The administration justified its proposed cuts by saying certain programs are duplicative, overly ideological, or better left to the states.

(Frieden, MedPage Today, 5/2; Raman, Roll Call, 5/2; Choi, et al., The Hill, 5/2; Payne, STAT+ [subscription required], 5/2)

Trump administration asks court to dismiss abortion drug case

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday issued a court filing asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, arguing that the case does not meet the legal standard to be heard in the federal district court in which it was filed.

In 2022, a group of anti-abortion physicians and medical associations sued FDA, arguing the agency didn't have the authority to approve or regulate mifepristone as safe and effective, and that the 19th century anti-obscenity law known as the Comstock Act applied to mailing the drug.

Last June, the Supreme Court ruled the doctors and associations lacked standing, but didn't weigh in on the merits of the case. Shortly after, Missouri's attorney general filed a new lawsuit in District court.

In DOJ's filling, the department argues that "regardless of the merits of the States' claims, the States cannot proceed in this Court … The States' Amended Complaint should be dismissed or transferred for lack of venue."

According to Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, there have been questions about how the Trump administration would treat mifepristone, adding that it's possible "that due to procedural problems with this case, the administration just doesn't want to use it to put their stake in the ground."

"Things could change," Donley said. "But filings like this give the impression that maybe they aren't going to be as extreme as people like me feared."

(Belluck, New York Times, 5/5; Reed, Axios, 5/5)

Senators unveil legislation aimed at lowering drug costs

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) unveiled legislation aimed at lowering drug costs by preventing drug companies in the United States from charging higher prices than the international average.

In a statement, Hawley tied the legislation to President Donald Trump's efforts during his first term to link U.S. drug prices to prices in other high-income countries.

"This bipartisan legislation would continue that work to end a drug market that favors Big Pharma, make prescriptions affordable again, and empower Americans to get the care they need," Hawley said, adding that "if Republicans want to save money on healthcare costs in reconciliation, this is where to start."

The bill would not only prohibit drug companies from selling drugs in the United States at a higher price than the international average but would also impose a penalty if companies violate the prohibition.

"Big Pharma's price gouging has made that a reality for many Americans, forcing them to pay four or five times more for the same lifesaving medications as folks in other countries — it's unacceptable," Welch said.

(Leonard/Carney, POLITICO, 5/5)

Multiple states sue RFK Jr. over HHS restructuring

Twenty Democratic attorneys general on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Rhode Island against HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, HHS, CDC, FDA, and certain administrators arguing that the elimination of jobs and offices, as well as cuts to public health grants, amounts to an "unconstitutional and illegal dismantling" of HHS.

Specifically, the lawsuit argued that enacted cuts have already jeopardized a variety of congressionally mandated programs, including mental health and addiction services, Medicaid, and the Head Start program.

The lawsuit also argues that the Trump administration usurped Congress' authority to set spending and fund the programs it authorized. It added that decisions to lay off the staff of entire programs and move HHS away from its traditional role and rooting within medical science was abrupt, arbitrary, and illegal.

"Congress created HHS and has invested enormous sums into it every year without interruption, and the congressional mandates remain in place today," the attorneys general said in the lawsuit. "Much of that investment was lost in a day through the massive firings of HHS’s leaders and staff. More will be lost if nothing is done."

"This administration is not streamlining the federal government; they are sabotaging it and all of us," said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the filing. "When you fire the scientists who research infectious diseases, silence the doctors who care for pregnant people, and shut down the programs that help firefighters and miners breathe or children thrive, you are not making America healthy — you are putting countless lives at risk."

(DeSilva, Modern Healthcare, 5/5; Goldman, Axios, 5/5; Montague, New York Times, 5/5)

NIH lays off hundreds more staff

NIH on Friday laid off around 200 employees, according to three people who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity. The move surprised officials at NIH since the department previously said that no further cuts were planned.

"We thought the worst was behind us, and we were transitioning into this new phase, and the rug was just pulled out from underneath us," one laid-off employee told CBS News.

Two of the people who spoke to CBS News said they had been told the second round of job cuts was part of an effort to compensate for other scientists needing to be reinstated, to comply with layoff targets.

Among the cuts were around 50 employees at NIH's National Cancer Institute who worked in the institute's Office of Communications and Public Liaison, overseeing updates to databases summarizing cancer information for providers and programs like the Cancer Information Service, which provides answers to doctors and patients about cancer.

An HHS spokesperson said that, following a review, the department notified additional employees that they were "also impacted" by the planned layoffs announced in March, adding that fewer than 250 employees at the department received notices. According to an HHS official, "the same number of employees will be brought back in critical areas."

(Tin, CBS News, 5/6)