Health

Axios -  U.S. drugmakers are facing a one-two punch from President Trump: As he appears ready to impose pharmaceutical tariffs, the White House is also revisiting a policy from his first term that would force drugmakers to accept lower prices for prescriptions that are pegged to what's paid abroad.

The pharmaceutical industry estimates it could lose as much as $1 trillion over a decade from just the so-called international reference pricing policy, per Bloomberg. Then, there's anticipated higher costs and supply chain kinks from the new duties.

• Add in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s distrust of the industry and periodic administration statements about Americans being overreliant on medications, and you've got a perfect storm that could eat into pharma's bottom line and, in the most dire predictions, its ability to develop new cures.

 NPR - GOP leaders in swing districts insist they will not support any proposal that strips Medicaid benefits. The division has become a hurdle for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Restructuring Medicaid, the federal health care program for poor, elderly and disabled Americans, is one of the clearest ways conservatives can achieve their deep spending cut goals. 

Nice News - A recent study found that talk therapy is becoming more popular among American adults, while the use of psychiatric medication without therapy is declining.
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​This trend is the opposite of a previous period, in the 1980s and 1990s, when medication began being widely used as a sole treatment. “We’re seeing that during this time, this increase represents a period where psychotherapy is assuming a more important role in outpatient mental health care,” Dr. Mark Olfson, the study’s lead author, told NPR.
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Olfson explained that while about 6.5% of American adults received psychotherapy in 2018, that figure went up to 8.5% in 2021. The study also found that during the same time period, the percentage of those using medication exclusively (with no therapy) decreased from 67.6% to 62.1%. And a growing number of patients are in talk therapy with no medication use for depression, anxiety, or trauma and stressor-related disorders.
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“Overall, it suggests that psychotherapy [is] becoming more accessible to people and people are able to take advantage of it,” said Olfson. If you’re curious about starting a therapy journey, here’s a step-by-step guide to finding a therapist.