The state of the country’s health care landscape is in flux, according to top health experts and lawmakers, as the federal government shutdown hinges on the battle over health care access and new priorities crystallize under the second Trump administration.
Health policy experts, key lawmakers and industry leaders spoke at The Hill’s “Health Next Summit” on Tuesday, laying out their view of where U.S. public health is headed – and the dangers and opportunities on the horizon.
The discussions took place one week into the first government shutdown in years, as Democrats demand an extension of enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act Marketplace plans.
Tuesday’s event was sponsored by ByHeart. Here’s what to know:
Public health leaders fearful
Policy experts expressed concerns about how Trump administration policy changes will negatively impact health care.
Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), called Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s control over federal health “absolutely frightening.”
“The idea that we have, as a secretary of health, one of the nation’s leading anti-vaccine advocates is absolutely frightening,” said Besser. He called the firing of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and subsequent replacement with members that included some known vaccine critics “really scary.”
“The CDC was really the world’s crown jewel when it came to a public health agency and unfortunately, that’s not the case anymore. There’s terrific people still working at the CDC, but its ability to do its job has been severely compromised,” Besser said.
Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, sounded alarm over the future of medical research funding.
The Trump administration’s budget request included an $18 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), representing a 40 percent reduction of the agency’s budget. The Senate Appropriations Committee rejected this proposal, instead advancing a bill that would increase funding to the agency.
“The proposed cuts and the actual cuts are devastating,” Brown said. “If we think about the strategic advantage the United States has in the area of science and technology, it’s very significant, and we’re at risk of losing that.”
“The demolishing of scientific research will have a devastating impact on every single one of us today and in the future,” she added.
GOP cuts already being felt
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Biden administration, said the impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) on health care providers was already being felt, despite most of the health provisions being scheduled to go into effect after the midterms next year.
The OBBBA will reduce federal Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over the next decade.
“What over the last couple of months, we have seen across the nation is that the money that is taken out of the Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act coverage is already affecting care in this country,” said Brooks-LaSure. “I’ve been doing a number of meetings and town halls across the country, and we’re already seeing rural hospitals who are either talking about not expanding or shutting important services.”
She noted that a rural Georgia hospital announced last month that it was closing down its labor and delivery unit, with hospital administrators citing the cuts in the OBBBA as part of the reason why.
Besser echoed these concerns, noting how mass firings carried out under the Trump administration had prevented states from accessing certain federal resources.
“Milwaukee was dealing with a problem with lead poisoning in the water and they called CDC to get support. And the department that focused on lead poisoning was gone,” Besser recalled. “If you’re in a community and you can’t drink water, you feel it.”
As was reported earlier this year, officials from the National Center for Environmental Health told Milwaukee’s public health department that “due to the complete loss of our Lead Program,” the agency would be unable to respond to the city’s request for aid.
Wearable devices’ growing role in health
Leaders from companies making popular wearable health devices detailed how their products can be integrated into regular health care.
Lauren Cheung, a physician and head of health products at Apple, said devices like the Apple Watch can bring attention to “invisible” health problems, noting that most Americans only seek care when they feel ill.
“We’ve actually been building features for a long time to really change the way that our users interact with health to make sure that they’re getting the meaningful information they need so they can take action in the moment,” said Cheung.
She highlighted two recently introduced features by Apple: hearing tests that can be conducted with AirPods and hypertension notifications that can potentially flag signs of high blood pressure.
“Hypertension is often called in the medical realm the silent killer. It’s something that is completely asymptomatic, and so people don’t know what they have,” said Cheung. “But if it’s left untreated, it often leads to stroke, to heart attacks or even heart failure. And so now with hypertension notification, you can wear your watch and get notified if you have signs of what we call stage 1 or stage 2 hypertension.”
Cheung expressed support for congressional actions that could facilitate further access to these devices, such as legislation allowing for Health Savings Account to be used for buying these devices.
Tom Hale, CEO of Oura, said his company’s Oura Ring can track sleep, potential influenza infections, blood sugar changes and fertility windows.
“So, we can see the correlations between your behaviors and the outcomes that are happening on a very kind of like continuous way,” Hale said.
Kennedy is a fan of wearable health devices, once calling them a “key to the MAHA agenda.”
“People can take control over their own heath. They can take responsibility,” Kennedy said in a hearing in front of the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health.
Casey Means, Kennedy’s pick for Surgeon General, is the co-founder of Levels, a health technology company that focuses on tracking health information through devices like continuous glucose monitors.
