By Ben Zdencanovic, University of California, Los Angeles

The Medicaid system has emerged as an early target of the Trump administration’s campaign to slash federal spending. A joint federal and state program, Medicaid provides health insurance coverage for more than 72 million people, including low-income Americans and their children and people with disabilities. It also helps foot the bill for long-term care for older people.

In late February 2025, House Republicans advanced a budget proposal that would potentially cut US$880 billion from Medicaid over 10 years. President Donald Trump has backed that House budget despite repeatedly vowing on the campaign trail and during his team’s transition that Medicaid cuts were off the table.

Medicaid covers one-fifth of all Americans at an annual cost that coincidentally also totals about $880 billion, $600 billion of which is funded by the federal government. Economists and public health experts have argued that big Medicaid cuts would lead to fewer Americans getting the health care they need and further strain the low-income families’ finances.

As a historian of social policy, I recently led a team that produced the first comprehensive historical overview of Medi-Cal, California’s statewide Medicaid system. Like the broader Medicaid program, Medi-Cal emerged as a compromise after Democrats failed to achieve their goal of establishing universal health care in the 1930s and 1940s.

Instead, the United States developed its current fragmented health care system, with employer-provided health insurance covering most working-age adults, Medicare covering older Americans, and Medicaid as a safety net for at least some of those left out.

Health care reformers vs. the AMA

Medicaid’s history officially began in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the system into law, along with Medicare. But the seeds for this program were planted in the 1930s and 1940s. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration was implementing its New Deal agenda in the 1930s, many of his advisers hoped to include a national health insurance system as part of the planned Social Security program.

Those efforts failed after a heated debate. The 1935 Social Security Act created the old-age and unemployment insurance systems we have today, with no provisions for health care coverage.

Nevertheless, during and after World War II, liberals and labor unions backed a bill that would have added a health insurance program into Social Security.

Harry Truman assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death in 1945. He enthusiastically embraced that legislation, which evolved into the “Truman Plan.” The American Medical Association, a trade group representing most of the nation’s doctors, feared heightened regulation and government control over the medical profession. It lobbied against any form of public health insurance.

During the late 1940s, the AMA poured millions of dollars into a political advertising campaign to defeat Truman’s plan. Instead of mandatory government health insurance, the AMA supported voluntary, private health insurance plans. Private plans such as those offered by Kaiser Permanente had become increasingly popular in the 1940s in the absence of a universal system. Labor unions began to demand them in collective bargaining agreements.

The AMA insisted that these private, employer-provided plans were the “American way,” as opposed to the “compulsion” of a health insurance system operated by the federal government. They referred to universal health care as “socialized medicine” in widely distributed radio commercials and print ads.

In the anticommunist climate of the late 1940s, these tactics proved highly successful at eroding public support for government-provided health care. Efforts to create a system that would have provided everyone with health insurance were soundly defeated by 1950.

JFK and LBJ

Private health insurance plans grew more common throughout the 1950s.

Federal tax incentives, as well as a desire to maintain the loyalty of their professional and blue-collar workers alike, spurred companies and other employers to offer private health insurance as a standard benefit. Healthy, working-age, employed adults – most of whom were white men – increasingly gained private coverage. So did their families, in many cases.

Everyone else – people with low incomes, those who weren’t working and people over 65 – had few options for health care coverage. Then, as now, Americans without private health insurance tended to have more health problems than those who had it, meaning that they also needed more of the health care they struggled to afford.

But this also made them risky and unprofitable for private insurance companies, which typically charged them high premiums or more often declined to cover them at all.

Health care activists saw an opportunity. Veteran health care reformers such as Wilbur Cohen of the Social Security Administration, having lost the battle for universal coverage, envisioned a narrower program of government-funded health care for people over 65 and those with low incomes. Cohen and other reformers reasoned that if these populations could get coverage in a government-provided health insurance program, it might serve as a step toward an eventual universal health care system.

While President John F. Kennedy endorsed these plans, they would not be enacted until Johnson was sworn in following JFK’s assassination. In 1965, Johnson signed a landmark health care bill into law under the umbrella of his “Great Society” agenda, which also included antipoverty programs and civil rights legislation.

That law created Medicare and Medicaid.

From Reagan to Trump

As Medicaid enrollment grew throughout the 1970s and 1980s, conservatives increasingly conflated the program with the stigma of what they dismissed as unearned “welfare.” In the 1970s, California Gov. Ronald Reagan developed his national reputation as a leading figure in the conservative movement in part through his high-profile attempts to cut and privatize Medicaid services in his state.

Upon assuming the presidency in the early 1980s, Reagan slashed federal funding for Medicaid by 18%. The cuts resulted in some 600,000 people who depended on Medicaid suddenly losing their coverage, often with dire consequences.

Medicaid spending has since grown, but the program has been a source of partisan debate ever since.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Republicans attempted to change how Medicaid was funded. Instead of having the federal government match what states were spending at different levels that were based on what the states needed, they proposed a block grant system. That is, the federal government would have contributed a fixed amount to a state’s Medicaid budget, making it easier to constrain the program’s costs and potentially limiting how much health care it could fund.

These efforts failed, but Trump reintroduced that idea during his first term. And block grants are among the ideas House Republicans have floated since Trump’s second term began to achieve the spending cuts they seek.

The ACA’s expansion

The 2010 Affordable Care Act greatly expanded the Medicaid program by extending its coverage to adults with incomes at or below 138% of the federal poverty line. All but 10 states have joined the Medicaid expansion, which a U.S. Supreme Court ruling made optional.

As of 2023, Medicaid was the country’s largest source of public health insurance, making up 18% of health care expenditures and over half of all spending on long-term care. Medicaid covers nearly 4 in 10 children and 80% of children who live in poverty. Medicaid is a particularly crucial source of coverage for people of color and pregnant women. It also helps pay for low-income people who need skilled nursing and round-the-clock care to live in nursing homes.

In the absence of a universal health care system, Medicaid fills many of the gaps left by private insurance policies for millions of Americans. From Medi-Cal in California to Husky Health in Connecticut, Medicaid is a crucial pillar of the health care system. This makes the proposed House cuts easier said than done.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Ben Zdencanovic, University of California, Los Angeles

Read more:

• GOP lawmakers commit to big spending cuts, putting Medicaid under a spotlight – but trimming the low-income health insurance program would be hard
• Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people
• From FDR’s food stamps to Trump’s harvest boxes: The history of helping the poor get enough to eat

Ben Zdencanovic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Feature Image: President Lyndon B. Johnson, left, next to former President Harry S. Truman, signs into law the measure creating Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. AP Photo

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By Nora McDonald, George Mason University

Long before Roe v. Wade was overturned, reproductive justice advocates had been sounding the alarm about the increasing number of women subjected to criminal investigation for suspected abortion, stillbirth or miscarriage. These cases were often initiated by health care providers and bolstered by state laws used to prosecute women for having abortions.

Newer laws, however, incentivize people outside of health care, including friends and family members, to report someone they suspect of having an abortion or helping someone else with an abortion. Coupled with the unprecedented access that authorities now have to digital information, these laws create new avenues for prosecution.

In the post-Roe era, people capable of pregnancy face growing threats. Health care providers, family, friends, information on personal devices and virtually any activity that can be observed or recorded pose privacy risks that can lead to prosecution. I study online privacy. This vast scope for potential surveillance and privacy intrusion is a key focus of the research my colleagues and I conduct.

In a recent paper, we surveyed reproductive health care providers about their privacy and security practices. We used the results to map the path of a hypothetical “Jane” to illustrate how people can identify privacy risks in their own situations. This choose-your-adventure approach helps readers navigate the potential legal, digital and personal challenges involved in accessing reproductive health care – and reveals the grim stakes.

Privacy protections

Historically, health care providers who opposed abortion have been the primary sources for reporting patients suspected of seeking abortions. While they remain a significant threat, additional risks to patient privacy have emerged. For example, state laws increasingly compel providers to hand over medical records.

This circumvents new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protections meant to shield protected reproductive health information from use in investigations when people seek abortions in states where the procedure is legal. Authorities might also be able to access records across state lines where abortion is legal – for example, when different electronic health record systems can share data.

It is also possible that, in the future, electronic health records could be seized across state lines. Last year, in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 19 state attorneys general protested the new federal data privacy rules. Texas followed up with a lawsuit against the Biden administration over the rule.

Even so-called shield laws adopted by some states meant to protect people seeking abortions from record seizures have loopholes.

Privacy vulnerabilities

Despite some protections offered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, additional gaps in safeguarding reproductive health information persist. Data captured outside medical portals, such as from apps or pharmacy transactions, often falls outside the federal law’s scope.

It’s important to note that apps that capture consumer reproductive health data, like period trackers, do not necessarily pose a greater risk than informants. But the dystopian potential of governments reaching into personal intimate data, and the simplicity of the remedy – deleting an app – draw disproportionate attention.

While it’s not entirely clear whether period trackers are definitively good or bad from a digital privacy perspective, they do offer potential benefits, such as helping people prevent unwanted pregnancies and thus avoid prosecution.

Once reported to authorities, activities conducted on personal devices – browsing history, purchases, location data, and messages with friends or family – can become evidence in prosecutions. Authorities have shown a willingness to subpoena records from social media platforms, and they frequently access personal devices.

Additionally, laws that incentivize family, friends and partners to report suspected abortions create a threat of surveillance from intimate associates. These dynamics are exacerbated by new laws that criminalize “trafficking” minors – transporting them across state lines – for abortion services.

Providers’ role protecting privacy

In our research, my colleagues and I found that reproductive health care providers can play a critical role in guiding patients on adopting privacy strategies and helping them navigate an increasingly complex landscape of privacy threats. Clinics are trusted spaces for affordable, progressive care that often shield patients from judgment or harm.

Based on our interviews with reproductive health care providers, the protocols they use to manage communications, billing and other aspects of patient interactions have proved effective at protecting privacy, especially for vulnerable populations like minors or people with abusive partners. However, people seeking abortions face more nuanced threats. Providers tend to overlook digital risks and threats of prosecution tied to patients’ devices and records.

This gap in awareness leaves patients without critical guidance for protecting their privacy. Our initial research conducted in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision revealed that people capable of pregnancy express profound concerns about reproductive privacy, yet often feel inadequately prepared to navigate its complexities.

Findings from our forthcoming research suggest that many patients take extensive precautions, yet it’s not clear how effectively they can prioritize their digital strategies. At the same time, these people place significant trust in their reproductive health care providers, especially because they often deem existing guidance on privacy untrustworthy or insufficient.

Although providers may currently be less attuned to the newer privacy risks, they could play a crucial role in addressing them. By incorporating digital privacy and threat modeling into their care, providers can help patients navigate a complex landscape of threats in an environment of pervasive surveillance.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Nora McDonald, George Mason University

Read more:

• FTC lawsuit spotlights a major privacy risk: From call records to sensors, your phone reveals more about you than you think
• Online data could be used against people seeking abortions now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned
• Data brokers know everything about you – what FTC case against ad tech giant Kochava reveals

Nora McDonald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Feature Image: Providers play a central role in reproductive health privacy. FG Trade/iStock via Getty Images

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By Anissa Durham, Word In Black, BlackPressUSA

     At 40 weeks pregnant, Georgina Dukes-Harris drove to her weekly OB-GYN appointment in Clemson, South Carolina. It was 8 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2011. The doctor told her there’s no need for her son to “bake any longer.” So, the first-time mom returned, as instructed, at 6 p.m. on the same day. Health care providers gave her Pitocin to induce labor.

    Next, they gave her an epidural and broke her water. Dukes-Harris was now on a time clock. She had 48 hours to give birth before complications could set in for her and the baby. Even though her cervix wasn’t fully dilated to 10 centimeters, doctors told her to push.

     Four to five hours of pushing and nothing was happening.  

     “I was pushing, and they used forceps to try to pull him out, and it left a big scar on his head.” she says, “It’s like I had two births in one.”

     At that point, Dukes-Harris’ heart rate spiked, and the baby showed signs of distress. Doctors decided to give her an emergency C-section on Dec. 16, which she describes as a deeply traumatic experience.

     At 19-years-old and in the best shape of her life, Dukes-Harris recalls following her doctors’ instructions to a T. But the trauma that came with her unplanned C-section left her dealing with postpartum depression and anxiety for more than a year afterward.

      Dukes-Harris’s story is one of many that highlight the challenges Black birthing people face in America. Maternal care deserts, abortion bans, and the over utilization of C-section have all traumatized and even ended the lives of Black women. Now Black birthing people, physicians, and holistic care providers are pushing for a more patient-centered approach.

Black Mothers Face Higher Risks and Limited Options 

    A 2024 March of Dimes report found that 35% of U.S. counties are maternity care deserts, which are counties with no birthing facilities or obstetric clinicians. Chronic conditions related to poor health outcomes for birthing people like pre-pregnancy obesity, hypertension and diabetes have increased since 2015 and are most common in maternity care deserts. These conditions are also most common among Black and American Indian and Alaska Native birthing people.

     Pregnant people who give birth in counties that are identified as maternity care deserts or low access areas have poorer health before pregnancy, receive less prenatal care, and experience higher rates of preterm births. Most states have between one and nine birth centers, but that still leaves 70% of all birth centers residing within 10 states.

    “We serve four different counties that do not have any OB-GYNs at all,” says Joy Baker, an OB-GYN in LaGrange, Georgia. “The real issue is these are communities that already have diminished access to social determinants of health … I think of them as political determinants of health. These places don’t become under resourced by accident.”

Barriers to Maternal Health Care 

     Pregnant people in areas identified as maternity care deserts often travel between 26 to 38 minutes for obstetric care. During pregnancy and childbirth, longer travel time is associated with higher risk of maternal morbidity, stillbirth and neonatal intensive care unit admission, the report states. And Black women are already at a higher risk for gestational diabetes, preeclampsia and postpartum hemorrhage.

     “There’s not one condition that I can think of that gets better in pregnancy,” Baker says. “It’s usually exacerbated.”

     Now, more than two years after fact, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that protected a women’s right to an abortion, has complicated things for physicians like Baker. In Southern states with some of the strictest abortion bans like Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, Black women are facing more barriers to access reproductive health care.

     But it’s not just patients who are struggling.  

     Each state has a different abortion ban or restriction, often making it unclear as to what a physician is able to do. For example, in Georgia, abortion is restricted to six weeks or less. Although the law has exceptions to protect the “life of the mother,” the language is vague and can leave loopholes for doctors to be prosecuted if a physician intervenes too early.

     In Baker’s personal practice, she hasn’t been affected too much by the abortion bans. But she says there are physicians in neighboring counties that have struggled with caring for their patients due to the law.

“Doctors are afraid. When you have spent your entire life training and building a career, the last thing you want is to go to prison for just doing your job,” Baker says. “There is a lot of fear surrounding that. It’s been horrible to the physician patient relationship.”

Birthing Shouldn’t Be Traumatic 

     Birthing Shouldn’t Be Traumatic At 38 weeks pregnant, Lauren Elliot’s doctor told her the umbilical cord was wrapped around her son’s neck at least three times. Later, they realized it was wrapped around his neck five times. Delivering vaginally no longer became an option when her son was in distress. Elliot, 29 at the time, had a C-section.

     “I was paralyzed with emotion from wanting him to be OK,” she says.

     Shortly afterward she developed postpartum preeclampsia. And like Dukes-Harris, Elliot, now 36, described a C-section as a traumatic experience. Although her son was delivered healthy, the mental health toll from her first birthing experience loomed over her for two years. She struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. To cope she created Candlelit Care, an app-based behavioral health clinic that supports Black birthing people throughout a pregnancy and afterwards.

For her next pregnancy, Elliot determined to have a vaginal birth after a cesarean section or VBAC. But many doctors worry about a uterine rupture even if a patient has fully healed from a C-section. She also made the intentional decision to have a Black OB-GYN.

    But even that wasn’t enough. During labor with her second child, Elliot wasn’t dilating fast enough. Then, doctors informed her she would need to have a second cesarean. Initially, she felt like a failure for not being able to have a vaginal birth. But she finds comfort in knowing she at least experienced labor.

     In 2023, according to the World Health Organization, about one in three births in the United States were C-sections.

    There are a few reasons why. The over utilization of C-sections, Baker says, is because physicians are afraid of malpractice claims and lawsuits. While in training, she recalls physicians encouraging a C-section because “you never have to apologize when the baby comes out.” But this default decision has increased the risk of complications for patients.

     “Not only is it a traumatic mental imprint that is forever left (on a patient),” Baker says, but they also face an increased risk of hemorrhage, infection, and postpartum complications. “There is a time where a C-section is needed … but this whole knee-jerk reaction to just do a C-section, if you’re unsure, needs to stop.”

Will I Die Giving Birth? 

     In 2023, when Dukes-Harris became pregnant again at 33, she was determined to do things differently with her birthing experience. To prepare for her daughter’s arrival, Dukes-Harris got a prenatal chiropractor and hired a team of three doulas and a home birth midwife.

“I can’t die giving birth,” she says. “My OB-GYN said that having a baby at 30-plus, over 300 pounds, is basically a death sentence.”

     But her diagnosed anxiety kicked in and led her back to the hospital at 4 a.m.

     “I physically prepared, but I didn’t mentally prepare for birth,” she says. “I was having an out-of-body experience.”

     Doctors wanted to push for a C-section, but Dukes-Harris refused. Once her 6-foot-5 husband and midwife entered the room, she was able to successfully deliver her daughter vaginally. Now, after two birthing experiences that didn’t go exactly as planned, she created swishvo, a platform that connects patients and providers to access holistic health options.

     On a national scale, certified nurse midwives have been shown to improve birth outcomes for Black and American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Currently, 27 states and D.C. have policies that allow certified nurse midwives full practice authority.

     “Community-based birth workers, doulas, nurse navigators, lactation consultants, childbirth educators, we need all of that,” Baker says. “Our doulas are magnificent; they educate patients. We’re not able to do this by ourselves as physicians and midwives. We need a community of care for our patients.”

Feature Image: Courtesy of Georgina Dukes-Harris Instagram.

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By Diana Lara, UC Health

UC researchers’ tiny tech tool makes emergency resuscitation easier for all.

Every second counts in critical moments when someone stops breathing. Yet, the life-saving tools available in places like football fields, restaurants, or even the battlefield are often rudimentary.

That could soon change thanks to a groundbreaking innovation from researchers and clinicians at the University of Cincinnati (UC).

After years of meticulous development, Justin Benoit, MD, Jason McMullan, MD, and Ephraim Gutmark, PhD, have launched Rescue Ventilation Solutions (RVS), a startup aimed at revolutionizing emergency resuscitation.

RVS’s product, nicknamed “Spiritus,” is a novel technology that has been in development since 2017 and is designed to attach to any standard bag-valve mask used when someone stops breathing, such as during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Using a bag-valve mask without a means to measure critical variables—such as the amount of air being delivered, the rate of breaths, and the pressure exerted—can be perilous.

As Benoit explains, “It’s like flying a plane with no gauges. How someone uses a bag-valve mask determines how much oxygen is in the blood, the pH of the blood, and the circulation to the heart muscle itself—all of which can determine life or death.”

RVS’s tiny, two-inch device, weighing less than 100 grams, promises to bring the precision of a ventilator to the palm of a bystander or first responder.

While highly effective, traditional mechanical ventilators are cumbersome andexpensive, weighingin at around30+ pounds and costing thousands of dollars. They are not practical in most emergency situations outside of a hospital. When someone stops breathing in a supermarket aisle, on a sports field, or in a school, the tools at hand are usually limited to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or a bag-valve mask.

The Spiritus device is inexpensive, portable, disposable, and, above all, accessible, unlike bulky ventilators, typically confined to hospital settings due to their size and weight.

The urgency of RVS’s mission becomes clear when you consider the stakes.

In 2023, during the first quarter of the Jan. 2 football game in Cincinnati, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old, tackled Bengals receiver Tee Higgins, taking him to the ground. Hamlin stood up after the tackle and took two steps but then collapsed to the turf and immediately went into cardiac arrest. McMullen was on the field and began administering CPR using a bag-valve mask.Hamlin’s heartbeat was revived on the field before being taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

The delicate nature of the lungs adds to the complexity. Delivering too much air can result in air entering the stomach instead of the lungs, or worse, it could cause a lung to rupture—a potentially fatal outcome, as the lungs are a delicate, complicated living tissue. 

With the intellectual property (IP) license now granted by the UC Office of Technology Transfer, located within the 1819 Innovation Hub, RVS is moving forward with the final development of its minimum viable product (MVP), a critical step before presenting it to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval. This regulatory milestone is essential for the commercialization of the device, and RVS is actively seeking an investor to accelerate the process.

Beyond civilian use, RVS’s potential has drawn interest from the U.S. military, particularly the Air Force, given the University of Cincinnati’s long-standing connections in trauma research.

“You can imagine how the military isn’t going to carry a transport ventilator onto the battlefield,” Benoit remarks.

Feature Image: Co-founder Jason McMullan presents Spiritus technology. UC Health photo

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By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

As the incoming administration prepares to enact sweeping changes to health policy, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial appointment to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Biden-Harris Administration is addressing a critical health issue: obesity. A new proposal aims to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage for anti-obesity medications (AOMs), potentially providing millions of Americans access to life-saving treatments.

Obesity, which affects an estimated 42 percent of the U.S. population, is a chronic disease linked to increased mortality and serious conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. Despite recent advancements in obesity treatment, including medications that can reduce heart attack risk and Type 2 diabetes, these drugs remain prohibitively expensive, often costing up to $1,000 per month without insurance.

The Biden-Harris proposal seeks to broaden Medicare and Medicaid coverage for these medications, reducing out-of-pocket costs by up to 95 percent for some enrollees. The expanded coverage could benefit an estimated 3.4 million Medicare beneficiaries and 4 million Medicaid enrollees. “This proposal ensures that Americans can access treatments they need to lead healthier lives without financial burden,” a senior administration official stated.

Kennedy’s Controversial Appointment Raises Questions About the Future of Healthcare

The proposal comes as President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Kennedy as HHS Secretary has drawn widespread criticism. Kennedy, known for his distrust of pharmaceuticals and promotion of healthcare-related conspiracy theories, has repeatedly criticized the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for what he calls its “aggressive suppression of psychedelics.” On his podcast, Kennedy described the United States as “the sickest country in the world,” blaming a healthcare system focused on “pills and potions” rather than building immune systems and promoting holistic health.

Kennedy has also advanced the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism, a stance that has alarmed public health officials. Even the New York Post, which has previously praised Kennedy, warned that his confirmation could be disastrous for public health. In a 2023 editorial, the Post highlighted Kennedy’s claim that “all America’s chronic health problems began in one year in the 1980s,” calling his views both unscientific and dangerous.

If confirmed, Kennedy would wield significant power to reshape the healthcare system, with much of his rhetoric on psychedelics and the pharmaceutical industry mirroring that of Elon Musk, who Trump has also tapped for a cabinet position.

Biden-Harris Administration Focuses on Affordable Healthcare

In contrast, the Biden-Harris Administration continues to prioritize accessible healthcare. Since taking office, President Biden has strengthened Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act through measures like the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. These efforts have already delivered significant savings for millions of Americans, including insulin price caps, free vaccines, and a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap for prescription drugs starting in 2025.

The proposal to expand AOM coverage builds on this record, aiming to address obesity comprehensively through prevention, treatment, and systemic change. The administration’s National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health has already integrated nutrition and obesity counseling into Medicare and Medicaid, targeting diet-related diseases such as obesity.

Looking Ahead

As the U.S. prepares for a dramatic shift in health policy under Trump’s administration, the Biden-Harris Administration’s final actions emphasize reducing costs and expanding access to life-saving treatments. By broadening AOM coverage, millions of Americans could soon have the support they need to address obesity and its related health challenges. The Biden-Harris administration’s efforts starkly contrast to the incoming leadership at HHS, whose unorthodox views and conspiracy theories have sparked significant public concern.

“We can lower drug prices and improve health outcomes for Americans,” Biden stated.

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