Read today’s Kaiser Health News
In other news:
Federal judge reverses rule that would have removed medical debt from credit reports: A federal judge in Texas removed a Biden-era finalized rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would have removed medical debt from credit reports.
U.S. District Court Judge Sean Jordan of Texas’s Eastern District, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, found on Friday that the rule exceeded the CFPB ‘s authority. Jordan said that the CFPB is not permitted to remove medical debt from credit reports according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which protects information collected by consumer reporting agencies.
12 recent healthcare industry lawsuits, settlements FYI
About health insurance/insurers
Senator introduces bill to reverse Medicaid cuts he voted for: Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has introduced legislation to roll back some of the Medicaid changes that he had voted for in the recently signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
How the $1T Medicaid cuts law is also a $500B Medicare cuts law: Because Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to balloon the federal budget deficit by $3.4 trillion over 10 years, it triggered automatic spending cuts under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, known as the PAYGO Act. The White House Office of Management and Budget must find $340 billion a year in spending reductions…
The PAYGO Act caps Medicare cuts at 4% of program spending. At a time when providers say reimbursements already aren’t keeping pace with rising costs, even a few percentage points shaved off Medicare rates — atop likely Medicaid payment cuts — could be painful.
It’s possible these Medicare cuts never come to fruition, however. Congress has the authority to waive PAYGO and has done so for statutes such as Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021…
But waiving PAYGO would require 60 vote in the Senate, so the GOP would need Democrats to go along. Republican leaders also could face resistance from the conservative lawmakers who nearly derailed the bill over fiscal concerns.
UnitedHealth quietly sold assets to improve margins: Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Group discretely sold stakes in some of its business units to private equity firms near the end of 2024 in an effort to extend its long-running profit streak despite mounting internal cost pressures, Bloomberg reported July 15.
According to the report, the deals included selling a controlling stake in Epic Hearing Healthcare to Warburg Pincus and finalized a deal involving a senior fitness program with KKR & Co. In total, UnitedHealth saw an additional $3.3 billion in profit stemming from asset sales by the end of the fourth quarter.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Navigating the Uncertainty of Federal Policy 2025: Examining the Government & Regulatory Impact on Healthcare Delivery Organizations: See the Executive Summary on page 2.
About pharma
President Trump: Pharma tariff is coming: Trump… said he would "probably" announce tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs at the end of the month, and that levies on semiconductors could come soon as well.
The president said he would start at a lower tariff rate and give pharma companies a year to build domestic factories before they face higher import tax rates. Trump said computer chips would face a similar style of tariffs.
As the EU is negotiating a deal with the US, the pharmaceutical sector is eagerly watching every move that might impact the industry in the bloc, as more than one-third of EU pharma exports are sent to the US.
Chinese biotech behind Merck & Co.'s PD-1/VEGF play sold for $951M: As interest ramps up in the PD-1/VEGF bispecific space, Sino Biopharmaceutical is taking full control of LaNova Medicines — the Chinese biotech behind a $3.3-billion cancer drug deal with Merck & Co. last year — by acquiring the remaining shares it doesn't already own in a deal worth up to $951 million.
About healthcare IT
Many in U.S. Consider AI-Generated Health Information Useful and Reliable:
The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s April 2025 health survey finds that:
Most (79%) U.S. adults say they’re likely to look online for the answer to a question about a health symptom or condition.
Three-quarters (75%) of people who search online say that AI-generated responses provide them “sometimes” (45%) or “often or more” (31%) with the answer they need.
Most Americans (63%) think AI-generated health information is somewhat (55%) or very (8%) reliable.
Nearly half (49%) are not comfortable with health care providers using AI tools rather than their experience alone when making decisions about their care.