Trump says he may veto legislation extending ACA subsidies

President Donald Trump on Sunday said he may veto legislation that would extend enhanced subsidies for ACA enrollees.

The House last week passed a three-year extension of the subsidies, with 17 Republicans joining all House Democrats to pass the bill 230-196 and send it to the Senate.

Currently, a bipartisan group of Senators are working on an agreement for a bill extending the ACA subsidies. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said he hopes to get roughly 35 of the Senate's 53 Republicans to support an eventual deal and that he's keeping the White House and Senate leaders aware of the discussions.

However, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked if he would veto the bill if it passed through the Senate, to which he replied, "I might."

A White House official said to Newsweek, "The President has been clear that he believes the money in question should go directly to people to buy their own health care rather than to big insurance companies to pad their bottom line."

(Steenhuysen, Reuters, 1/12; Laws, Newsweek, 1/12; Papp, CNBC, 1/9; Carney, POLITICO, 1/12; Carney, POLITICO, 1/7)

HHS reconsidering 340B rebate program opposed by hospitals

HHS is negotiating with hospital groups about reconsidering the 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program, according to a letter from the Department of Justice sent Monday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Last November, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) approved a new 340B drug rebate pilot program, which would require providers to pay upfront for drugs before applying for rebates instead of receiving discounts directly. Although the pharmaceutical industry has championed the program, healthcare providers have sharply criticized it. On Dec. 1, the American Hospital Association, the Maine Hospital Association, and four safety-net hospitals filed a lawsuit against HRSA to block the 340B rebate pilot program.

In December, Judge Lance Walker of the U.S. District Court of Maine paused the program, ruling it would violate the Administrative Procedure Act and could potentially harm hospitals.

Now, according to the letter sent from DOJ, HHS is engaged in discussions with hospitals about returning the rebate program back to the government for reconsideration.

"The agency intends to resolve such proceedings promptly," Maxwell Baldi, a DOJ attorney representing HHS, said in the letter. "Therefore, the parties do not believe that expediting this appeal is warranted at this time and plan to dismiss the appeal in short order."

(Phengsitthy, Reuters, 1/12)

Over 230 medical groups urge Congress to investigate overhaul of childhood vaccine schedule

Hundreds of medical and public health organizations in a letter urged Congress to investigate the overhaul of the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule implemented by CDC earlier this month.

Last week, federal health officials announced significant changes to the childhood vaccination schedule, reducing the number of vaccinations recommended for children from 17 to 11. Since the announcement, at least 17 states have said they won't follow the new CDC vaccine schedule and instead plan to follow vaccine guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In the letter, which was signed by more than 230 organizations representing clinicians, scientists, public health professionals, and patient groups, the authors said Congress needs to "conduct swift and robust oversight" of the vaccine schedule changes, which the authors described as abrupt and opaque.

The letter added that the changes to the vaccine schedule were not based on credible scientific evidence and were made without any public input, stakeholder review, or discussion by CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

ACIP "was not afforded the opportunity to publicly discuss this schedule before it was announced," the letter said. "We urge you to investigate why the schedule was changed, why credible scientific evidence was ignored, and why the committee charged with advising the HHS Secretary on immunizations did not discuss the schedule changes as a part of their public meeting process."

"Any changes to the recommended immunization schedule, particularly changes of such great magnitude, should be made through a transparent public process through which the scientific data underpinning any potential changes is made public and carefully reviewed by experts," the organizations wrote. "Critically, vaccine recommendations must be based upon the best available scientific data. The recent changes announced to the U.S. immunization schedule do not meet these standards, greatly failing any test for 'gold-standard science,' which is critical to protect public health and earn public trust."

(McCreary, MedPage Today, 1/12; Szabo, CIDRAP News, 1/12)

Trump names controversial Yale doctor to lead US cancer initiative

President Donald Trump last month named Harvey Risch, an epidemiologist at Yale University, to lead the nation's cancer initiative.

Risch has published 400 peer-reviewed research papers over the course of his career, most notably regarding cancer prevention and early detection, and has studied a variety of malignancies, including ovarian, pancreatic, lung, bladder, esophageal, and stomach cancers.

According to an announcement from HHS, Risch "plans to accelerate American innovations in cancer prevention and increase the public's awareness of reproductive, dietary, occupational, environmental, and immune system-related factors that influence cancer etiology."

Risch is a professor emeritus and senior research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine and in recent years, garnered controversy resulting from a 2023 audio segment from the "America Out Loud" conservative podcast network in which Risch speculated about a connection between the COVID-19 vaccine and "turbo cancer" in young adults, despite no clinical evidence of the connection.

In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Risch advocated for hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the disease, arguing in a paper for the American Journal of Epidemiology and in an opinion piece for Newsweek that the drug should be used early in high-risk patients with symptomatic COVID-19.

This prompted a letter from Risch's colleagues at Yale, who expressed "grave concern," as well as a rebuttal in the American Journal of Epidemiology from Matthew Fox, an epidemiologist at Boston University.

(Cha, Washington Post, 12/17/25)