Fresno Bee: Fresno Teen Fights Medicaid Cuts In Washington, DC
Cruz Hernandez graduated from Bullard High School last week and, hours after obtaining his high school diploma, boarded a plane to Washington, D.C. with his mother and younger brother to advocate against Medicaid cuts. Cruz, who turned 18 on Tuesday, has a rare genetic disease called neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) that causes tumors to grow all over his body. He shared his story last week with members of Congress as part of the Children’s Hospital Association’s annual Family Advocacy Day. (Ortiz-Briones, 6/17)

The New York Times: Senate Bill Would Make Deep Cuts To Medicaid, Setting Up Fight With House
Senate Republicans on Monday released legislation that would cut Medicaid far more aggressively than would the House-passed bill to deliver President Trump’s domestic agenda, while also salvaging or slowing the elimination of some clean-energy tax credits, setting up a fight over their party’s marquee policy package. (Edmondson, Sanger-Katz, Romm and Plumer, 6/16)

The Washington Post: Paid Family Leave Credit Would Expand Under Republican Tax Bill
Congressional Republicans are poised to expand an obscure tax credit that helps companies provide paid family leave for their workforces, with plans to make the rarely used provision permanent. Lawmakers authorized the credit, known as Section 45S, in 2017 as a two-year trial amid calls for paid family leave for working parents — a national standard in much of the world. It has been extended twice and covers as much as one-quarter of a full-time worker’s wages for six to 12 weeks after the birth of a child, or other qualifying family or medical event. It’s available for workers who earn less than $96,000 a year. (Weil, 6/17)

Stat: 16,000 Deaths Tied To Medicaid Cuts In GOP Budget Bill, Study Warns
Key health care provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, especially the proposed Medicaid cuts and Affordable Care Act marketplace reforms, would lead to 16,642 preventable deaths every year if implemented, according to a new analysis published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine. (Russo, 6/16)

AP: Americans Want Medicaid And Food Stamps Funding Maintained Or Increased, AP-NORC Poll Shows 
As Republican senators consider President Donald Trump’s big bill that could slash federal spending and extend tax cuts, a new survey shows most U.S. adults don’t think the government is overspending on the programs the GOP has focused on cutting, like Medicaid and food stamps. Americans broadly support increasing or maintaining existing levels of funding for popular safety net programs, including Social Security and Medicare, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. They’re more divided on spending around the military and border security, and most think the government is spending too much on foreign aid. (Sanders, 6/16)

Fierce Healthcare: Dems Introduce Bill To Establish Medicare 'Part E' Public Option
Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced new legislation that would establish a "Part E" for Medicare, which would allow people to opt into the program. Reps. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., and Don Beyer, D-Va., on Monday put forward the Choose Medicare Act. Under the proposal, a potential Medicare Part E would have the program compete with private insurance. Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley, of Ore., and Chris Murphy, of Conn., introduced a companion bill in that chamber. (Minemyer, 6/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: Stanford Inks AI Virtual Care Deal
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Stanford Health Care has tapped a virtual care company to provide pulmonary rehabilitation to COPD patients at home. Kivo Health provides AI-powered virtual pulmonary rehab and care. The treatment model aims to improve access and outcomes and keep patients out of the hospital. (Bruce, 6/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: 6 1st-Of-Its-Kind Procedures Performed In 2025
In the first half of 2025, eight systems have performed first-of-their-kind procedures and clinical treatments. ... A team of surgeons at Keck Medicine of Los Angeles-based University of Southern California and UCLA Health completed the world’s first human bladder transplant May 4. (Taylor, 6/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: Spanish-Speaking Patients Face Higher HAI Risk, Kaiser Study Finds
Patients whose first language is Spanish are more likely to acquire certain hospital-associated infections than those whose first language is English, according to a study by Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente. Infection prevention personnel at Kaiser Permanente reviewed 6,813 publicly reported infections across 21 Kaiser acute care hospitals in Northern California from 2019 to 2023. (Twenter, 6/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: Top Digital Investments To Support Nurses, Per 4 Systems
Digital innovation has emerged as a frontline strategy in health systems’ efforts to close nurse staffing gaps and improve the delivery of patient care. Leading organizations are investing in AI-powered tools to ease documentation burden among nursing staff, expanding virtual nursing models and modernizing technology infrastructure in patient rooms. Taken together, leaders say these efforts are driving significant improvements in staff satisfaction, operational efficiency and patient safety. (Carbajal, 6/17)

The Hill: Trump Administration Denies Report Of New VA Hospital Rules
The Trump administration on Monday denied reporting by The Guardian that said new Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals could refuse care to veterans based on factors like marital status and political affiliation due to an executive order by President Trump. The Guardian earlier Monday published a report saying VA hospitals are implementing new rules in response to Trump’s executive order in January, which would permit workers to deny care to veterans based on characteristics not protected by federal law. (Choi, 6/16)

The Guardian: ‘Extremely Disturbing And Unethical’: New Rules Allow VA Doctors To Refuse To Treat Democrats, Unmarried Veterans
Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump. The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers. Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment. But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law. (Glantz, 6/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: 3 Nursing Associations Condemn ICE Receiving Medicaid Enrollee Data
Three state nursing associations are speaking out against Medicaid enrollee data being shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On June 16, the Washington State Nurses Association, American Nurses Association-California, and American Nurses Association Illinois released a joint letter condemning the practice. (Taylor, 6/17)

Bloomberg: Trump’s Migrant Crackdown Threatens To Make Hiring Home Health Aides Harder
President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown threatens to shrink the workforce for one of America’s fastest growing jobs: Home health and personal care aides. Demand for such care is expected to swell as the US population ages, and the industry has increasingly relied on immigrants to fill home health positions. Foreign-born people comprise roughly one in five US workers, yet they account for more than 40% of home health aides and nearly 30% of personal care employment, according to US government data. (Saraiva and Caldwell, 6/16)

The New York Times: Trump’s Cuts To N.I.H. Grants Focused On Minority Groups Are Illegal, Judge Rules
A federal judge on Monday declared some of the Trump administration’s cuts to National Institutes of Health grants “void and illegal,” accusing the government of racial discrimination and prejudice against L.G.B.T.Q. individuals. Ruling from the bench, Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts delivered a damning assessment of the Trump administrations’ motives in targeting hundreds of grants that focused on the health of Black communities, women and L.G.B.T.Q. people. (Montague, 6/16)

CBS News: CDC Official Overseeing COVID Hospitalization Data Resigns After RFK Jr.'s Vaccine Orders
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who led the agency's network to study hospitalization trends from infectious diseases like COVID-19 has resigned in protest following Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s orders to change the agency's vaccine recommendations and the committee that makes them. Dr. Fiona Havers' last day at the CDC was Monday, according to an announcement sent by an agency official to her branch within the agency's Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division. They received the notice shortly after Reuters first reported on the resignation. (Tin, 6/16)

MedPage Today: Removed ACIP Members Say 'U.S. Vaccine Program Critically Weakened'
The dismissal of all 17 members of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel and their quick replacement, along with cuts to CDC staff, have "left the U.S. vaccine program critically weakened," all of the ousted members wrote in a Viewpoint in JAMA. They charged that the actions may "roll back the achievements of U.S. immunization policy, impact people's access to lifesaving vaccines, and ultimately put U.S. families at risk of dangerous and preventable illnesses." (Fiore, 6/16)

The New York Times: E.P.A. Plans To Reconsider A Ban On Cancer-Causing Asbestos
The Trump administration plans to reconsider a ban on the last type of asbestos still used in the United States, according to a court filing on Monday. The move, which could halt enforcement of the ban for several years during the reconsideration, is a major blow to a decades-long battle by health advocates to prohibit the carcinogenic mineral in all its forms. (Tabuchi, 6/16)

Politico: Energy Department Seeks To Roll Back Title IX Protections For Women’s, Education Programs
The Trump administration is seeking to rescind key civil rights protections for sex discrimination in sports and education programs through a swift regulatory process at an unlikely agency: the Department of Energy. Buried in a list of more than three dozen regulation changes published in May, the DOE is moving to rescind regulations that oversee sports participation and sex discrimination protections for students in education programs. (Quilantan, 6/16)

The Washington Post: Food Giant Kraft Heinz Vows To Stop Using Artificial Dyes
Kraft Heinz promised Tuesday to purge certain artificial food dyes from its products by the end of 2027, a move that follows pressure from the Food and Drug Administration over the issue. The company said it will replace food, drug and cosmetic (FD&C) dyes with natural versions when possible; create new colors and shades, if necessary; or simply remove colors in some cases. (Gregg, 6/17)

The New York Times: Doctor Who Gave Matthew Perry Ketamine Will Plead Guilty, U.S. Says
A doctor who illegally supplied the “Friends” actor Matthew Perry with the drug ketamine in the weeks leading up to Mr. Perry’s death in 2023 — traveling to his home and a parking lot to inject him — has agreed to plead guilty, according to court documents. The doctor, Salvador Plasencia, could face up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine on four criminal counts of distributing of ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, under the agreement, which was filed on Monday in federal court in Los Angeles. (Vigdor, 6/16)