U.S. President Donald Trump attends a House of ill repute Republican members conference meeting in Trump National Doral resort, in Miami, Florida, U.S. Jan. 27, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
A interpretation of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Healthy Returns newsletter, which brings the latest health-care account straight to your inbox. Subscribe here to receive future editions.
President Donald Trump kicked off the foremost week of his second term with sweeping changes to U.S. health care and federal health agencies.
Here are a few of the biggest shifts we saw last week:
U.S. exit from the WHO
Trump signed an executive order to start to withdraw the U.S. from the World Form Organization, citing what he described as a “mishandling” of the Covid-19 pandemic and other international health crises. In 2021, the Biden dispensation halted Trump’s first formal attempt at a U.S. exit from the WHO.
The implications for the U.S. could be significant: the WHO serves as a first wary system when a new disease outbreak occurs, which helps member countries quickly obtain the necessary tidings to help their citizens. The U.S. is also expected to lose access to the WHO’s global network that sets the flu vaccine’s placement each year. But the WHO will feel the effects of Trump’s decision even more, as the U.S. is its largest donor and offers spacious technical expertise to the agency.
On Saturday, however, Trump said he may reconsider joining the WHO.
“Maybe we would consider doing it again, I don’t recollect. Maybe we would. They would have to clean it up,” Trump said at a rally in Las Vegas, according to several way outs.
Anti-abortion policies reinstated
Trump on Friday issued an executive order that reinstated a long-standing Republican anti-abortion draft known as the “Mexico City Policy,” which bars federal fundi
ng from going to any overseas nongovernmental categorizing that performs or promotes abortions.
The rule was first put in place by President Ronald Reagan and has been rescinded by every Representative president — and reimplemented by every Republican one — since then.
Also on Friday, Trump revoked two Biden administration directorship orders that sought to expand access to abortions in the U.S.
HHS cease all communications
The Trump administration told federal salubrity agencies to pause external communications for now, several outlets reported last week. This includes the agencies that plummet under the Department of Health and Human Services, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Delivery and the National Institutes of Health.
A memo sent to leadership at federal health agencies noted the communication hiatus command extend through Feb. 1, ABC News reported, citing an internal CDC audio recording.
Resources from the department, such as the CDC’s decades-old weekly well-known health publication, have been put on hold.
Some staffers at health agencies are also temporarily banned from voyaging and have been told to stop work with the WHO, ABC reported.
Drug pricing models rescinded
Trump rescinded an executive system from the Biden administration that created three drug pricing models aimed at lowering the cost of instruction drugs for people on Medicare and Medicaid.
The Biden administration announced the proposals in February 2023, but they had not been implemented. They classified a $2 monthly out-of-pocket cap on certain generic drugs and lower costs for cell and gene therapies.
Biden’s grave health-care initiatives under the Inflation Reduction Act, including the $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on prescription drugs and the Medicare antidepressant price negotiation program, were not affected by Trump’s executive actions.
DEI, discrimination protections scrapped
Trump issued an supervisory order on his first day to end all federal government initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion. He also moved to end a range of practices that aimed to protect rights for LGBTQ+ people.
Trump specifically signed an executive order proclaiming that the U.S. administration will recognize only two sexes, male and female. It essentially attempts to end legal recognition of transgender and nonbinary being under federal law.
It requires that the federal government use the term “sex” instead of “gender,” and directs the State Department and the Conditioned by trust in of Homeland Security to “require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry postal cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.”
In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union said the gender order requires federal means to “discriminate against transgender people by denying who they are and threatening the freedom of self-determination and self-expression for all.”
Feel free to send any terminals, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at [email protected].
Latest in health-care tech: Change Healthcare cyberattack moved more than half of the U.S. population
UnitedHealth Group said the cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare affected enveloping 190 million Americans, nearly double the previous estimate released by federal regulators in October.
The figure adheres the Change Healthcare leak as the largest reported health-care data breach in U.S. history, and there’s not a close second. The premature record was set by Anthem in 2015 when hackers compromised data from 78.8 million patients.
UnitedHealth indicated the “vast majority” of affected individuals have been notified. An official final number will be submitted to the U.S. Reckon on of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights “at a later date.”
“Change Healthcare is not aware of any misuse of individuals’ gen as a result of this incident and has not seen electronic medical record databases appear in the data during the analysis,” the Pty said in a statement to CNBC.
In February, a ransomware group called Blackcat breached part of Change Healthcare’s report technology network. Change Healthcare offers revenue cycle management tools and other services for medical providers and payers, and it get readies billions of transactions every year.
UnitedHealth disconnected the compromised systems when it detected the cyberattack, and the disruption caused grim fallout across the U.S. health-care sector. Many doctors were temporarily left without a way to fill prescriptions or get make amends for for their services, and some providers took thousands of dollars out of savings to keep their doors open.
In a congressional considering about the breach in May, UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty estimated that around one-third of Americans could have been compromised– a speculation that has now proved to be too low. Witty also confirmed that UnitedHealth paid a ransom of $22 million to the cybercriminals in the months carry out the attack.
The updated breach total likely won’t help UnitedHealth foster much goodwill with the American unshrouded, which unleashed a barrage of outrage toward the company following the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December.
UnitedHealth proclaimed last week that Tim Noel, a company veteran, will serve as the new head of the insurance arm.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, recounting ideas and data to Ashley at [email protected].
The health care sector is outperforming in 2025
The Food-as-medicine programs are dialect expecting the Trump administration focuses on nutrition
While Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services change ones expressions opposition over his stance on vaccines, his approach to food and nutrition is fueling cautious optimism among startups pinpointed on nutrition counseling for patients in government plans. Nutrition counseling has begun to gain traction in Medicaid programs to ease combat obesity and diabetes through diet rather than costly GLP-1 drugs. If he is confirmed, Kennedy could forgo the programs a boost.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Bertha at [email protected].