The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) advocacy team monitors healthcare related legislation, rule changes, and legislative updates for Ohio’s family physicians.
To access the OAFP Bill Tracker, visit the OAFP Public Policy webpage and click on the Bill Tracker icon.
Read on for this week’s updates and contact Advocacy Coordinator Kaela Springhetti with questions or for ways to get involved.
U.S. Senate Confirms Trump Pick to Head Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Source: Ohio Capital Journal
The United States Senate recently voted to confirm Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Susan Monarez — whom the Senate confirmed on a party-line vote, 51-47 — will now be responsible for the national public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Atlanta-based agency has faced backlash as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pursues a vaccine-skeptical agenda.
GOP Senators Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Dan Sullivan of Alaska did not vote.
Susan Monarez was the acting director of the CDC between January and March. She previously served as the deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, which is part of HHS.
Susan Monarez, who has a PhD in microbiology and immunology, will be the first person without a medical degree to hold the title since 1953.
The White House originally selected former Florida U.S. Representative Dave Weldon to lead the CDC but withdrew the nomination in March.
Susan Monarez’s confirmation followed an earlier procedural vote that saw her advance, 52-47, along party lines.
Secretary Kennedy continues to face scrutiny after he fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in June and named eight new members — a number of whom are viewed as skeptical of vaccines.
Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, launched an investigation alongside seven Democratic members of the committee Tuesday regarding Secretary Kennedy’s firings and replacements within the critical vaccine panel.
“By removing all 17 of ACIP’s members and replacing them with eight individuals handpicked to advance your anti-vaccine agenda, you have put decades of non-partisan, science-backed work — and, as a result, Americans’ lives — at risk,” the senators wrote in a letter to Secretary Kennedy.
Those seven Democratic committee members include Senators John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Andy Kim of New Jersey, and Tim Kaine of Virginia.
Proposed Rule Bans Nearly all Abortions at VA Hospitals
Source: The Hill
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said in the proposal that it is reversing a 2022 rule that for the first time allowed the department to provide abortions in limited circumstances to pregnant veterans and their eligible family members, even in states that banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Between 1999 and 2022, the VA excluded almost all abortions and abortion counseling for veterans and their families from their medical benefits package.
By reversing the rule, officials are seeking to ensure taxpayer dollars are not used to terminate pregnancies, according to a filing released August 1. They also called the Biden Administration’s decision to implement the interim rule “inappropriate” and “legally questionable.”
A final rule could come as soon as the public comment period on the measure closes on Wednesday, September 3.
Reproductive rights groups said the move robbed service members of the ability to control their bodies and their futures.
“Since taking office, the Trump Administration has repeatedly attacked service members, veterans, and their families’ access to basic reproductive care, including gender-affirming care,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said, referring to the VA’s decision in March to stop providing transgender veterans with hormone therapy.
“Taking away access to healthcare shows us that the Trump Administration will always put politics and retribution over people’s lives.”
Anti-abortion groups, meanwhile, applauded the Trump administration’s decision, calling it a “major win” for the movement.
“Instead of prioritizing the real and urgent needs of our veterans, the Biden-Harris Administration turned VA hospitals into abortion centers – violating longstanding law and betraying the will of the American people who strongly oppose forced taxpayer-funded abortions,” the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said in a statement.
“Thankfully, this injustice is now corrected.”
As New Medicaid Requirements Loom, One Ohio Recipient Warns the Complicated System Will Get Worse
Source: Ohio Capital Journal
People pushing cuts to the safety net in Ohio and nationally say they want to stop freeloading and waste. Ohioan Tarrezz Thompson does everything those people say they want.
She owns a small business, teaching small children with learning disabilities who mostly come from low-income families. She’s helping herself and her family by giving those kids and their families a hand up.
But Tarrezz Thompson, a mother of six and the recipient of a kidney transplant, said maintaining health and other benefits is a confusing, arbitrary process already.
She warns that with budget cuts and new state and federal work requirements, many families will be forced from the system — not because they don’t want to work, but because the hassle will make maintaining benefits virtually impossible.
And that, she said, will only compound the problems that drove people to need help in the first place.
Tarrezz Thompson, who works with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s Care Economy Project, said that the families she works with have a take-what-comes attitude, but many don’t appreciate what’s about to hit.
Read the full story in The Ohio Capital Journal.