Dr. Oz, the closer

Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has played a key role in convincing congressional holdouts to vote for the tax bill and its $1 trillion in federal health care funding cuts over a decade, Chelsea Cirruzzo, Daniel, and I report.

Earlier in the week, the heart-surgeon-turned-TV-personality helped sell the bill to Senate Republicans, who passed their version of it on Tuesday. A day later, he was helping ease the concerns of House Republicans who were uneasy with the Senate bill's cuts to Medicaid, which are deeper than the spending reductions in the bill the House originally passed.

In the middle of the night, House Republicans cleared a procedural hurdle after several hours of intense negotiations among themselves, setting the bill up for a final vote today and the president's signature on July 4.

tax bill

How the tax bill would upend health care

The tax bill would mark the biggest changes to U.S. health policy since the 2010 passage of the ACA and the largest cuts since the creation of the Medicare and Medicaid programs more than half a century ago.

Daniel, Chelsea, and I summarize the tax bill's measures on Medicaid, rural health reforms, the Affordable Care Act, health savings accounts, Medicare drug price negotiation, gender-affirming care, and doctor pay.

Read more about how the bill would affect patients and health care providers.

polling

If a tree falls in the woods …

A lot has been written, including by me, about how Republicans are more politically vulnerable for Medicaid cuts since Trump made inroads with lower-income voters. But none of that matters if no one knows it happened.

Nearly half of Americans haven’t heard boo about the big, beautiful bill, according to the Democratic polling firm Priorities USA, and only 8% of those surveyed named Medicaid cuts as an aspect of the bill.

“Awareness of the GOP bill is limited, diffuse and general in nature, at best,” a press release of the poll results states.

lobbying

Keep it 100

Publicly, BIO and drugmakers have avoided criticizing Trump administration health officials. But a memo that purports to summarize a private meeting held by the biotech trade group suggests deep concern about health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stance on vaccines, and describes him as a “direct threat to public health,” according to Allison DeAngelis and Elaine Chen.

BIO said it didn’t produce the memo, and it does not reflect BIO’s plans. But a source familiar with the matter said a meeting of a BIO working group did occur and the document describes the sentiments of company representatives in attendance.

vaccine policy

Injury lawyer wants more injuries

Kennedy plans to expand the National Vaccine Injury Compensation program to include Covid-19 vaccines, Chelsea reports.

But funny thing: Kennedy said he would no longer recommend Covid-19 shots to healthy children and pregnant women, and vaccines must be on the routine immunization schedule for children and pregnant women to be covered by the vaccine injury compensation program.

Before becoming the nation’s top health official, Kennedy was with the personal injury law firm Wisner Baum, which is suing over Merck’s HPV vaccine Gardasil. He agreed to give fees that he could earn from that litigation to his son, who also is an attorney at the firm.

Read about the other hurdles to Kennedy’s plan here.

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