A key lawmaker has introduced a bill that would allow the attorney general to petition the court for the appointment of a receiver at financially distressed hospitals, a move prompted by the recent bankruptcy filing of Prospect Medical Holdings, which owns three community hospitals in Connecticut. The measure would also empower the state — through eminent domain — to assume control of hospitals that are at risk of closure because of financial instability.
President Trump began his second term Monday with a sweeping order aimed at reversing dozens of former President Biden's top priorities, from regulations aimed at lowering healthcare costs, to coronavirus outreach, Affordable Care Act expansions, and protections against gender-based discrimination.
President Donald Trump says he will begin to make changes this week to a handful of health measures. In his inaugural speech in Washington on Monday, the 47th president promised to reverse actions taken against military members who declined to follow the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which Congress repealed in 2023. Trump also said his administration will reform the public health system. He noted chronic disease prevention and treatment as priorities, in line with the Make America Healthy Again agenda he shares with his pick to lead HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump also said he would change how public health agencies respond to disasters, noting flooding in North Carolina last year and the more recent wildfires in California.
NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli will resign on Jan. 17, she told staff this week, ending her tenure as the head of the $48 billion biomedical research agency after only a year. The NIH has typically been an agency with bipartisan support. But lingering Republican anger over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed NIH squarely into partisan crosshairs.
Conference organizers and the San Francisco Police Department ramped up security in the wake of the December shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The SFPD said in a statement that it had canceled some officers' time off "to ensure that sufficient officers are on hand throughout the conference" and that the entirety of the four-day event will be "fully staffed."
At a news conference where lawmakers said they were fuming, there came assurances that Crozer Chester Medical Center would remain open while its parent company, in seeking a Chapter 11 reorganization, searches for a buyer.