Health

Brian Allen - Donald Trump just unveiled “The Great Healthcare Plan” giving families $2,000 a year to buy their own health insurance.  But the average family premium is $26,000/year. That “plan” covers about 28 days of insurance… and leaves families uninsured for 337 days.

Study Finds-  The average American feels fully healthy only 16 days each month; the other half involves fatigue, body aches, or outright illness, with winter being the worst season for feeling unwell.

Axios - Concern about the FDA is widespread, but analysts and investors are divided over how much the agency's current problems are going to factor into the sector's future...

The FDA last year lost more than 900 scientists and health experts, along with over 500 regulators, investigators and compliance workers, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and DOGE radically reshaped the federal workforce, a ProPublica analysis found...

NPR - Yesterday, Trump announced an outline for new health care legislation, which he has dubbed the "Great Healthcare Plan." The White House issued a fact sheet outlining a framework the administration is asking Congress to develop, with four pillars: drug price reforms, health insurance reforms, price transparency for health costs, and fraud protections and safeguards. 

One thing that jumped out to NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin about the fact sheet is that the policies are not new, but like a compilation of the greatest hits of Republican health policy ideas. The proposal doesn’t mention repealing Obamacare, but, given the sparse details provided, it seems to want to let people use federal dollars to buy plans that don’t offer comprehensive coverage. The president’s plan could potentially weaken Healthcare.gov because its plans can be expensive but offer essential benefits and don’t discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.

The Guardian -   The Trump administration’s dismantling of federal agencies has hit cancer research hard. It has led to budgets being slashed, grants canceled or delayed, while clinical trials – often the final hope for children with terminal illness – have been suspended or closed. Laboratories have imposed a hiring freeze on researchers and postponed orders for new equipment, and world-class scientists are seeking jobs in the private sector or abroad.