Former RFK Jr. advisor says former White House chief of staff blocked healthy food policies

Calley Means, a former top advisory to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who resigned from his position last month, said in an interview that he resigned over alleged corruption from a "concentrated group of people" and accused former White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles of prioritizing political fundraising over Americans' health.

In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Means said that Wiles — who left her post as chief of staff last week — withheld support from his efforts to improve children's diets, citing a need for industry money. Means added that Wiles' team demanded more approvals of flavored e-cigarettes and that they gave in to heavy lobbying from the kratom industry to relax proposed restrictions on the drug.

"Susie said to me many times: 'We need money for the midterms Calley. We need money for the midterms,'" Means said.

Means resigned from the Trump administration in October, with sources telling the New York Times at the time of his resignation that Means had grown frustrated with stalled progress in implementing the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda. Specifically, Means started to feel stymied in his attempts to deliver on promises to improve the food supply by doing things like defining ultra-processed foods, the sources told the Times.

"The simple reality in why I left is that there is a very concentrated group of people in the Trump administration that are antagonistic to what people voted for and are, frankly, — I think it's very clear — doing things for other reasons," Means said in the interview. "Particularly in many cases to enrich their families," he added.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said the Trump administration "has already secured extensive victories" for the MAHA agenda, "including overhauling the dietary guidelines for Americans, axing artificial ingredients in our food supply, and investing in regenerative farming."

(Jewett/Stolberg, New York Times, 11/6; Bragg, Axios, 11/6)

CMS announces additional $10B in rural health funding

CMS on Monday announced the second round of funding under the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), giving North Dakota, Iowa, and Virginia the largest year-to-year increases.

The RHTP is a $50 billion fund aimed at helping rural health providers withstand Medicaid cuts and other federal policy changes enacted under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was passed in 2025. CMS guarantees each state at least $100 million a year and determines the remainder based on state-specific applications and program rollouts.

In total, CMS announced an additional $10 billion in funding for 2027. North Dakota received $206.4 million, marking a 3.74% increase from fiscal year 2026 and the largest increase in the second round of funding. Meanwhile, Iowa received $216 million, a 3.33% increase from last year, and Virginia received $195.7 million, a 3.25% increase.

Meanwhile, New Jersey received $142.3 million, marking a 3.34% decline from last year and the largest decline in the country, followed by Florida's 2.91% decrease to $203.8 million and Vermont's 2.59% drop to $190 million.

"States have already put these resources to work bringing better care closer to home for their rural communities, and CMS looks forward to helping them build on that progress in the coming year," said CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz.

(Kacik, Modern Healthcare, 11/9)

Federal government plans to end contracts with two arbitration firms amid soaring doctor payouts

The Trump administration plans to end its contracts with two arbitration firms that settle billing disputes under the No Surprises Act as the law has come under scrutiny for its high rates of payouts for doctors.

In a statement, CMS spokesperson Christopher Krepich said the firms' applications had been denied for performance reasons.

"The departments determined that these entities did not substantially comply with the standards governing their performance during their current certification terms," Krepich said.

Island Peer Review ruled in favor of doctors 96.5% of the time, more than any other arbitration firm, according to analysis by Turquoise. Meanwhile, Network Medical Review had sided with doctors 70.8% of the time.

(Sanger-Katz/Kliff, New York Times, 11/4)

Trump administration to roll back pregnancy-related workplace accommodations

The Trump administration is planning to roll back workplace accommodations related to pregnancy and reproductive health for women, limiting the impact of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) that was passed in 2022, according to seven people with knowledge of the discussions of the plans who spoke to the New York Times.

The PWFA was intended to fill a gap in disability and discrimination protections guaranteed to employees at workplaces, providing accommodations for pregnant workers such as bathroom and water breaks, relief from heavy lifting, or time off for prenatal appointments.

However, the scope of the regulations under the PWFA has been debated since the law was drafted. Conservatives have argued that the rule written by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to apply the PWFA went beyond pregnancy and included matters it was not designed to protect, including abortion, fertility treatments, and other related procedures and conditions.

EEOC chair Andrea Lucas is not expected to eliminate requirements that directly protect women during pregnancy, according to people familiar with the plans who spoke to the Times. However, she could eliminate explicit protections for conditions affecting women who aren't pregnant.

Lucas has previously said she disapproves of the PWFA's reach, saying in 2024 that it "fundamentally errs in conflating pregnancy and childbirth accommodation with accommodation of the female sex, that is, female biology and reproduction."

(Davenport/O'Brien, New York Times, 11/2)