Health

President Donald Trump’s first surgeon general denounced his latest pick for surgeon general, MAHA influencer Casey Means, on the grounds that she “doesn’t meet” the basic requirements for the job — an assessment seemingly shared by every living previous surgeon general.

“The role of surgeon general has centuries of precedent and requirements, and she doesn’t meet them,” Trump’s first surgeon general Jerome Adams told The Washington Post in an article published Sunday. Describing his objections as “operational, not personal,” Adams pointed out that if confirmed Means would not even be a member of the physicians corps but rather would be appointed through a provision that applies to health service workers. That alone would be unprecedented for a surgeon general, and perhaps explains why no previous surgeon general has come to Means’ defense.

“The irony would be the nation’s doctor wouldn’t even be in the corps as a doctor,” Adams told the Post.

For these and other reasons, Means’ appointment has not moved forward despite the social media influencer having been nominated almost 11 months ago.

“She doesn’t have the experience, she doesn’t have the background, she doesn’t have the credibility, she has no public health background,” Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general under President George W. Bush, told The Washington Post.

Ironically Trump’s original pick to be surgeon general in his second term, Janette Nesheiwat, was pressured into withdrawing her nomination because some questioned whether she had embellished her credentials. Yet Nesheiwat also supported vaccines, leading to pressure against her from supporters of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. which ultimately caused her to withdraw her nomination.

“I thought [Nesheiwat] was sufficiently qualified for the role,” Adams told The Post. In response to Adams’ criticisms, Means’ brother and White House official Calley Means denounced Adams as “a lightweight” lacking in intelligence, then adding with a misspelling that Adams’ supposed lack of intelligence is “obvious to litterally [sic] everyone.” Adams replied to the Post by saying, “We can and should have vigorous debates about how to improve America’s health. But lowering the discourse to crass ad hominem attacks comes across as childish and defensive.”

Although Means is being embraced by the Christian right for her opposition to established medicine, she is not a traditional Christian fundamentalist. As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte wrote in May, “Trump's new pick for the nation's top doctor, though she does not have a medical license, favors the occult-speak popular in the 'wellness' influencer world where she makes her money. As Kiera Butler and Anna Merlan at Mother Jones documented, Means veers 'in a more new age direction' in her 'medical' writing." Yet although Means is not explicitly affiliated with the Christian right, they embrace her because of her anti-feminist politics.

"Along with her shrines-and-moons talk, Means also wrote that she had shed 'my identity as a feminist,' giving up on wanting 'equality in a relationship' to instead embrace 'a completely different and greater power: the divine feminine," Marcotte wrote. "It's woo-woo, but ultimately no different than the message promoted by conservative Christians: that a woman's role is as a man's helpmeet, not his equal."

With such passionate backing, Means’ confirmation has been particularly contentious, prompting a sharp exchange of words last month between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) about the larger role of liberal policies in American health care.

"No, I support a national healthcare program which would cut the —" Sanders said shouting over Mullin as Mullin attacked Sanders for supporting President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

"I'm sorry, it's my time," Mullin told Sanders.

"But you're attacking me!" Sanders replied

"Nah, I'm pointing' out facts!" Mullin retorted. "You can say what you want I'm just pointing' out facts."

Sanders shot back, "No. You're pointing out lies.” Later, when Mullin apologized for having “ranted too long” and Sanders said “Yes you did,” Mullin replied “I'm sorry, I didn't ask your opinion on that. If I cared about your opinion I would ask you. But I don't care about your opinion. You're part of the system. You're part of the problem.”

New York Magazine reporter Ben Terris recently sat down with President Donald Trump for nearly an hour to discuss his health. Now, he's saying the unsightly bruise on the back of Trump's hand is apparently getting worse — and that the president is "very self-conscious" about it.

In a Monday interview with The Bulwark's Tim Miller, Terris went into detail about his encounter with Trump in the Oval Office. He told Miller that while he hadn't expected White House physicians to be present during his conversation with the president, he decided to focus the bulk of his questions on Trump's health — which the president and his staffers welcomed.

According to Terris, both White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt both pushed the narrative that the 79 year-old president had never been in better health. Miller suggested that Terris refer to Trump as a "superhuman president," which Terris made into the article's headline in what he called a "tongue-in-cheek" reference. Leavitt urged one of the physicians present in the meeting to repeat their comment to Terris that they thought Trump was in better health than former President Barack Obama — who is 15 years younger than Trump and has a disciplined workout routine.

However, Terris said the key moment that stuck out to him from his sit-down with the president was seeing his bruised hand. Terris conceded that Trump's excessive use of aspirin was the likely culprit for the bruise, as using the drug has been known to cause skin to bruise easily. But the New York Magazine writer went on to tell Miller that Trump's hands looked "gross" up-close and that his hands were unusually "soft" due to a lack of "physical labor over the years."

"But then on the other side, the backside of his hand, it looked kind of like rhino hide," Terris said. "It was very dry. The bruise had kind of taken over the whole back of his hand."

Terris also mentioned that he was president at the Oval Office for the president's meeting with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and that Trump "spent the whole time covering his hand with his other hand so nobody could see it." The president reportedly continued to "look at it like he was checking the time."

"He is very self-conscious about it," Terris said. "In fact, I talked to somebody who had a meeting with Trump and he had a bruise on the back of his hand and he wanted to like, relate with the president about it. He's like, 'look, I got one too.' And Trump shot it down."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who served as the cardiologist for late vice president Dick Cheney, told CNN news anchor Jake Tapper that he was alarmed by President Donald Trump’s appearance and demeanor during his Wednesday speech.

“I thought the content was just standard fare that we've become accustomed to. But it was the way it was delivered,” said Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University. “It was delivered in with a manic cadence, almost a frantic cadence. It was as if you felt like you were listening to a podcast, and that kind of manic delivery was very disturbing, very pressurized speech. And as the address went on the cadence of his remarks became quicker.”

“We've never seen the president like that,” Reiner said. “He seemed almost frantic. And it was it was disturbing to watch. It was disturbing because he's the commander in chief. He's not just the head of the government. He's the commander-in-chief of the greatest armed forces this world has ever seen.”

Other critics also noticed Trump’s high-energy delivery of fabricated numbers.

“This isn’t a speech, this is a primal scream of panic,” said Atlantic writer Tom Nichols, referring to Trump’s fast-talking “infomercial-style” delivery of bogus data and bragging.

“Why is he screaming?” said former Fox News, NBC News and CNN journalist David Shuster on X.

Tapper pointed out that Trump also appeared to be struggling to keep his eyes open during a public White House event in the Oval Office, which Reiner suggested may be connected to a night-time breathing disorder causing drowsiness, among other possibilities.

“It's jarring to see the president go from basically asleep in the Oval Office to a rapid-fire pace … in a 30-minute speech that he gave in 18 minutes. “… [No] one should be happy to see him … so loud and almost out of control.”

Coupled with the president’s chronic bruise, swollen ankles and “mysterious scans,” Reiner said the White House should be “more forthcoming” about Trump’s health.

Watch the segment below:

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President Donald Trump — who turned 79 years old in June — has lately appeared more aware of his mortality, according to actor and comedian Michael Ian Black.

In a Wednesday essay for the Daily Beast, Black opined that Trump's more recent public statements responding to speculation about his health suggest that the president may be attempting to grapple with the aging process. He began his op-ed by quoting from an interview Trump gave to Fox News last month in which he openly wondered if he could "get to heaven."

"I wanna try and get to heaven if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons," Trump said of his efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

READ MORE: Economist Paul Krugman says Trump 'telling the truth' on this issue – but there's a catch

Black regarded that comment as "the most self-reflective thing I’ve ever heard from the president," adding that it was proof that "something human still beats in that Grinchian heart." But he went on to argue that no amends Trump may be attempting to make are enough to atone for a life spent "doing the wrong things."

Trump's health has lately dominated the news cycle, as the president was seen with swollen ankles that are characteristic of people who have chronic venous insufficiency, and bruising on his hands that the White House attributed to excessive hand-shaking and aspirin use. The president also went several days without being seen on camera over the recent Labor Day weekend, which prompted speculation online that he may have passed away.

Michael Ian Black emphasized that while he doesn't personally wish a "difficult diagnosis" on the president, he simply hoped that Trump "reap exactly what he sowed" throughout his life. He went on to write: "It gives me so much joy to know that Trump is well aware of the woefulness of his own condition."

"When we are faced with our imminent deaths—or even ‘just’ reminded of our mortality—I can only imagine the thoughts running through most people’s minds have to do with the love they shared and the desire to make amends with those we believe we have wronged," Black wrote. "Is that what Trump is trying to do? If so, he’s doing about as good a job of it as he does with everything else. Even if he lives another eighty years, there isn’t enough time for him right his wrongs."

READ MORE: 'Fire her': Trump AG slammed as 'compulsive liar' after 'missing' Epstein footage emerges

Click here to read Black's full column in the Daily Beast (subscription required).

A Georgia woman declared brain-dead and kept on life support for more than three months because she was pregnant was removed from a ventilator in June and died, days after doctors delivered her 1-pound, 13-ounce baby by emergency cesarean section. The baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The case has drawn national attention to Georgia’s six-week abortion ban and its impacts on pregnancy care.

Adriana Smith was put on life support at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta in February. The then-30-year-old Atlanta nurse was more than eight weeks pregnant and suffering dangerous complications.

Her condition deteriorated as doctors tried to save her life, Smith’s mother told Atlanta TV station WXIA.

“They did a CT scan, and she had blood clots all in her head,” April Newkirk said. “So they had asked me if they could do a procedure to relieve them, and I said yes. And then they called me back and they said that they couldn’t do it.”

She said doctors declared Smith brain-dead and put her on life support without consulting her.

“And I’m not saying that we would have chose to terminate her pregnancy,” Newkirk said, “but what I’m saying is, we should have had a choice.”

Emory Healthcare declined to comment on the specifics of Smith’s case. After doctors removed Smith from life support, Emory issued a statement.

“The top priorities at Emory Healthcare continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients and families we serve,” the health system said. “Emory Healthcare uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature and legal guidance to support our providers as they make medical recommendations. Emory Healthcare is legally required to maintain the confidentiality of the protected health information of our patients, which is why we are unable to comment on individual matters and circumstances.”

In a previous statement, Emory Healthcare said it complies “with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.”

Abortion Laws and Fetal Personhood

Georgia’s HB 481 — the Living Infants Fairness and Equality, or LIFE, Act — passed in 2019. It took effect shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022.

The law bans abortion after the point at which an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity in an embryo. Typically, this occurs about six weeks into pregnancy, often before women know they’re pregnant.

The law also gave fetuses the same rights as people.

It says that “unborn children are a class of living, distinct persons” and that the state of Georgia “recognizes the benefits of providing full legal recognition to an unborn child.”

Nineteen states now ban abortion at or before 19 weeks of gestation; 13 of those have a near-total ban on all abortions with very limited exceptions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan research group that supports abortion rights.

Like Georgia, some of these states built their abortion restrictions around the legal concept of “personhood,” thus conferring legal rights and protections on an embryo or fetus during pregnancy.

Smith’s case has represented a major test of how this type of law will be applied in certain medical situations.

Despite mainly being unified in their opposition to abortion, conservatives and politicians in Georgia do not publicly agree on the scope of the law in cases like Smith’s.

For example, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, said that the law should not restrict the options for care in a case like Smith’s and that removing life support wouldn’t be equivalent to aborting a fetus.

“There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death,” Carr said in a statement. “Removing life support is not an action ‘with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.’”

But Republican state Sen. Ed Setzler, who authored the LIFE Act, disagreed. Emory’s doctors acted appropriately when they put Smith on life support, he told The Associated Press.

“I think it is completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child,” Setzler said. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital is acting appropriately.”

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California-Davis and author of “Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction,” said the problem is that Georgia’s law “isn’t just an abortion ban. It’s a ‘personhood’ law declaring that a fetus or embryo is a person, that an ‘unborn child,’ as the law puts it, is a person.”

The legal concept of “personhood” has implications beyond abortion care, such as with the regulation of fertility treatment, or the potential criminalization of pregnancy complications such as stillbirth and miscarriage.

Under Georgia’s law, extending rights of personhood to a fetus changes how child support is calculated. It also allows an embryo or fetus to be claimed as a dependent on state taxes.

But the idea of personhood is not new, Ziegler said.

“It has been the goal for virtually everyone in the anti-abortion movement since the 1960s,” she said. “That doesn’t mean Republicans like that. It doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s what’s going to happen. But there is no daylight between the anti-abortion movement and the personhood movement. They’re the same.”

The personhood movement has gained more traction since the Dobbs ruling in 2022.

In Alabama, after the state’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, the state legislature had to step in to allow fertility clinics to continue their work.

“This is sort of the future we’re looking at if we move further in the direction of fetal personhood,” Ziegler said. “Any state Supreme Court, as we just saw in Alabama, can give them new life,” she said referring to personhood laws elsewhere.

Fetal Personhood Laws Can Delay Care

In Georgia, dozens of OB-GYNs have said that the law interferes with patient care — in a state where the maternal mortality rate is one of the worst in the U.S. and where Black women are more than twice as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women.

Members of Georgia’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee — who were later dismissed from the panel — linked the state’s abortion ban to delayed emergency care and the deaths of at least two women in the state, as ProPublica reported.

The personhood provision is having a profound effect on medical care, said Atlanta OB-GYN Zoë Lucier-Julian.

“These laws create an environment of fear and attempt to coerce us as providers to align with the state, as opposed to aligning with our patients that we work so hard to serve,” Lucier-Julian said.

Lucier-Julian said that’s what happened to Emory Healthcare in Smith’s case.

Cole Muzio, president of the Frontline Policy Council, a conservative Christian group, said the state’s abortion law shouldn’t have affected how Emory handled Smith’s care.

“This is a pretty clear-cut case, in terms of how it’s defined in the language of HB 481,” he said. “What this bans is an abortion after a heartbeat is detected. That is the scope of our law.”

“Taking a woman off life support is not an abortion. It just isn’t,” Muzio said.“Now, I am incredibly grateful that this child will be born even in the midst of tragic circumstances. That is a whole human life that will be able to be lived because of this beautiful mother’s sacrifice.”

A suit challenging Georgia’s law and its impact on public health is working its way through the courts. A coalition of physicians, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and other groups filed the suit.

Newkirk said her daughter had initially gone to a different Atlanta-area hospital for help with severe headaches, was given some medicine, and was sent home, where her symptoms quickly worsened.

“She was gasping for air in her sleep, gargling,” she told WXIA in May. “More than likely, it was blood.”

Now, Newkirk said, the family is praying for her grandson to make it after the stress from months of life support.

He is fighting, she said.

“My grandson may be blind, may not be able to walk, wheelchair-bound,” she said. “We don’t know if he’ll live.”

She added that the family will love him no matter what.

This article is from a partnership with WABE and NPR.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Six months into Donald Trump's second presidency, GOP lawmakers have yet to push a bill that directly overturns the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), also known as Obamacare. But according to Trump's critics in the health care field, his "big, beautiful bill" will inflict severe damage not only on Medicaid, but also, on the ACA.

In an article published on July 22, Yaver details the ways in which Trump's policies will "make health insurance prohibitively expensive for millions" of Americans in the months ahead.

One of those critics is Miranda Yaver, assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh.

READ MORE: This White House lie shows they know Trump is in trouble

"The second Trump Administration has drastically destabilized America's public health bureaucracy, and the president has signed off on historic cuts to Medicaid and the broader safety net," Yaver explains. "What has drawn less public scrutiny is Republicans' decision to let enhanced subsidies for Americans who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act expire. This withdrawal of governmental assistance to purchase insurance will most likely result in younger, healthier people's dropping out of the health insurance market, leaving enrollees to be, on average, older and sicker — and therefore more expensive to insure."

Yaver continues, "To offset these sicker individuals' higher medical costs, for-profit health insurers' main tool is to increase the premiums they charge for everyone. Researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation find that premiums for plans on the ACA's marketplace will increase an average of 75 percent in 2026, with at least 12 states seeing premiums more than double."

Yaver notes that when then-President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law in 2010, "nearly 50 million" Americans or "roughly 16 percent of the population" lacked health insurance" — a number that was down to "26 million Americans" in 2023.

"Through the American Rescue Plan of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022," Yaver observes, "the Biden Administration implemented and extended enhanced subsidies, which reduced the cost of premiums by an average of 44 percent. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that a record 24.3 million people enrolled in ACA marketplace plans for the 2025 plan year. However, those enhanced subsidies expire at the end of 2025…. A sharp increase in the cost of health insurance in a country with already expensive health care comes with severe consequences."

READ MORE: The implications of Rupert Murdoch toppling Donald Trump are head-spinning

Yaver continues, "Health coverage through the ACA is associated with being connected to a usual source of health care, such as a primary care physician, and being able to obtain treatments that range from preventive to lifesaving. Rendering health insurance prohibitively expensive can lead people to forgo care they need — at best a problematic outcome, at worst outright dangerous."

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Miranda Yaver's full op-ed for MSNBC is available at this link.

Wyoming is among the reddest states in the Mountain West. Donald Trump carried Wyoming by roughly 46 percent in the 2024 presidential election, and the last Democratic president who won Wyoming was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

But Wyoming, like many other red states, is heavily reliant on safety-net programs that Democrats champion — including Medicaid. And according to a newly released study organized by The Natrona Collective Health Trust and conducted by Regional Economic Models, Inc. (REMI), the steep Medicaid cuts in Trump's "big, beautiful bill" are going to have severe effects in the deeply Republican state.

The study found that Wyoming's economy could shrink by $140 million over five years.

READ MORE: Stick a fork in him: Trump finally faces the threat of retribution — from MAGA

WyoFile reporter Katie Klingsporn notes, "The intent was to compare the effects of the newly enacted federal cuts with the potential economic gains Wyoming could enjoy under a different scenario: Medicaid expansion. The Health Trust released the study on the heels of the bill’s narrow passage into law — which makes the prognostications related to cuts even more relevant."

According to Dr. Peter Evangelakis, senior vice president of economics and consulting at REMI, "The impacts here start in the health care sector, but they really spread throughout the entire economy, in terms of across different industries."

Klingsporn notes, "Those impacts include an estimated loss of 192 jobs per year — with just over half of those in health care, followed by construction, retail and government. The state's gross domestic product will shrink by $27.8 million per year, the report finds, and residents will have $14.6 million less annually in disposable personal income. The hardest-hit regions will be the ones home to Wyoming's two largest towns: Casper and Cheyenne."

Klingsporn adds, "The study offers a look into the broader economic consequences of a policy many advocates say will have detrimental impacts on Wyoming's health care landscape. At least 12,000 Wyoming residents are projected to lose health coverage under the law, health-care advocates say."

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Wyoming Republicans who voted in favor of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" include Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Harriet Hageman, who occupies the seat once held by former Rep. Liz Cheney. A scathing critic of Trump and key player on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-California) January 6 Select Committee, Cheney was voted out of office when the ultra-MAGA Hageman — a Trump loyalist — defeated her in a GOP primary.

Klingsporn reports, "Where the cuts will lead to a shrinking state economy, the study found, expanding Medicaid in Wyoming would do the reverse. Expanding enrollment could lead to 440 new jobs over five years and a $60.9 million yearly increase in GDP, the study found. That includes a $41.5 million increase in disposable personal income per year, which breaks down to about $160 per family."

READ MORE: 'This is his king complex': Republicans split as Trump threatens to 'takeover' a 'pigsty'

Read the full WyoFile article at this link.

President Donald Trump and many of his loyalists are insisting that the draconian Medicaid cuts in his "big, beautiful bill" are strictly designed to combat "waste, fraud and abuse" and won't hurt Americans who genuinely need help paying for health care. But according to analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), roughly 16 million people would lose their health coverage and become uninsured by 2034 if the megabill, in its current form, becomes law.

Medicaid cuts would affect not only blue states, but also, red states that Trump won in 2024 — including Missouri, where he defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by 18 percent.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny, in an article published on June 27, takes a look at Medicaid users in red states who are worried about losing their access to health care.

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One of them is 36-year-old Missouri resident Courtney Leader, who told CNN, "This is not a luxury. I do not have my daughter enrolled on Medicaid so we can have fancy things. I have my daughter enrolled in Medicaid so we can keep her alive and keep her at home, which I think is the best option for her."

Leader sent a letter to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), telling the MAGA Republican and Trump ally, "Without Medicaid, we would lose everything — our home, our vehicles and, eventually, our daughter."

In Missouri, Zeleny notes, "at least one in five residents depend on Medicaid for health coverage."

Leader told CNN, "I know that they’re saying they're not planning to cut Medicaid, right? But I reached out, concerned that if any changes are made, there will be this trickle-down effect that will impact families like mine."

READ MORE: 'He. Is. Lying.' Republican blasted for spinning Medicaid cuts as 'transitioning

Leader described her daughter Cyrina's health problems, telling CNN, "The formula that is delivered through a tube in her stomach costs more than my mortgage. It costs more than my entire food budget for our family and in that alone, there is no way that we could come up with that $1500 to be able to feed her…. Who's going to protect us when they can’t get paperwork done in time and we lose coverage for a month or two? I'm worried that the red tape is going to affect our Medicaid because of just the oversight burdens and that as a result, I’m going to lose my daughter, because she’s lost coverage before.”

READ MORE: The truth behind Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' — and its impact on Obamacare

Read the full CNN article at this link.

President Donald Trump and his allies are insisting that his One Big, Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 — which narrowly passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, 215-214, and is now being considered in the U.S. Senate — won't hurt Medicaid in a significant way and is only targeting "waste, fraud and abuse." According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), however, the bill's Medicaid cuts will cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance if it becomes law.

Trump also claims that the megabill doesn't touch Medicare at all. But Jonathan Cohn, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on June 15, warns that the legislation, if it passes in the U.S. Senate in its current form, will hurt the Medicare recipients who need it the most.

"Republicans say the health care cuts in their One Big Beautiful Bill wouldn't touch Medicare," Cohn explains. "That is not true. One reason is the bill's projected fiscal effects. Thanks to all the tax cuts, the legislation would likely increase deficits enough to trigger automatic spending reductions that, under the terms of a 2010 law, would include cuts to Medicare."

READ MORE: Trump and the 2020 election: We’re witnessing the rewriting of history in the making

Cohn continues, "But the claim is also not true for another reason: One of the more important health care cuts in the legislation would affect Medicare beneficiaries. And not just any Medicare beneficiaries. I'm talking about some of the most vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities who are on Medicare — the ones who can least afford to deal with punishing medical bills."

According to Cohn, Trump's "big, beautiful bill" would hurt Medicare recipients not because of a "straight-up reduction in benefits or restriction in eligibility," but rather, a "change in the enrollment process for a particular program within Medicaid called the 'Medicare Savings Program.'"

"Yes, you read that right: It's a program within Medicaid with the word 'Medicare' in its title," Cohn warns. "But the short of it is that the program, along with a related initiative, plays a critical role in helping vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries cover their medical costs. And thanks to the Republican bill, roughly 1.3 million people who qualify for the assistance wouldn’t get the benefits, according to official estimates."

Cohn adds, "Many would respond by not getting medical care they need, and their health would deteriorate as a result. Thousands could die prematurely every year, according to one estimate that a group of health researchers put together last month. That might seem shocking or hard to believe. But it makes perfect sense to those who understand the program, and to those who work with the Medicare beneficiaries who depend on it. If you speak with some of them — as I did these past two weeks — you can see why they are so worried."

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Jonathan Cohn's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link (subscription required).

The mass layoffs of federal government workers being carried out by the Trump Administration with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — formerly headed by Tesla/SpaceX/X.com head Elon Musk — are affecting a variety of agencies, from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Another is the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

According to The Guardian's Rachel Leingang, NIH cuts are endangering treatment options for Natalie Phelps — a 43-year-old Washington State resident and mother of two who is fighting Stage 4 colorectal cancer.

Phelps, Leingang reports in an article published on May 28, is "raising the alarm about a setback in care for herself and others who are part of clinical trials run by the agency."

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"Her story has made it into congressional hearings and spurred a spat between a Democratic senator and the U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," Leingang explains. "Behind the scenes, she and others are advocating to get her treatment started sooner. So far, Phelps has been told that her treatment, which should have started around mid-June, will not begin until after mid-July…. Phelps is one of many Americans whose lives have been disrupted or altered by the ongoing cuts to government services made by the Trump Administration’s so-called 'Department of Government Efficiency' or DOGE."

Leingang adds, "Some NIH scientists have lost their jobs, and others have seen their grants ended."

Phelps expressed her frustration during a recent interview.

The Washington State resident told The Guardian, "I've done everything I can do. There’s nothing else I can do. I'm really just out of options. There's very limited treatments approved for colorectal cancer."

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Phelps, Leingang notes, has gone through "48 rounds of chemotherapy" as well as surgeries and "radiation therapy to her brain, leg and pelvis." And at the NIH, a cell-based immunotherapy trial from Dr. Steven Rosenberg "offered hope" to her — only now, Phelps' treatments are being delayed by Trump Administration/DOGE cuts.

Phelps told The Guardian, "That got me motivated enough to start to really panic, because my cancer between March and April really exploded and progressed to my lymph nodes and my bones. My oncologist was very anxious about the difference between four and eight weeks could make, waiting for those treatment products…. It's been so much extra stress.… It's been very intense emotionally and an extreme added stress that nobody needs. Cancer just shouldn’t be political."

READ MORE: 'They can't afford to live here': Deep red Montana town faces DOGE fallout

Read Rachel Leingang's full article for The Guardian at this link.

When Democratic then-Lt. Gov. John Fetterman debated Dr. Mehmet Oz during Pennsylvania's 2022 gubernatorial race, he was recovering from the effects of a stroke. And some far-right MAGA Republicans mocked him just as they mocked then-President Joe Biden's speech impediment.

But the October 25, 2022 debate arguably helped Fetterman with Pennsylvania voters, some of whom praised him as gutsy for debating Oz and staying in the race despite his stroke. And Fetterman won the election, flipping a U.S. Senate seat that was held by arch-conservative Republican Pat Toomey (who decided not to seek reelection) at the time and was held by the late Sen. Arlen Specter at the time.

In a column published by the Bay Area-based SFGate on May 22, journalist Drew Magary — himself a stroke survivor — is highly critical of Fetterman. Magary, however, isn't attacking Fetterman from the right, but from the left. And the column is less about Fetterman's political record than the example he is setting as a stroke survivor.

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Fetterman, Magary argues, is being a "bad patient."

"No two traumatic brain injuries are alike, and I can't know the extent of Fetterman’s brain damage because I'm not his doctor and because I'm prevented from seeing his CAT scans due to HIPAA laws — which currently remain in place until Oz, now in charge of Medicare for the second Trump Administration, throws them into a bonfire," Magary writes. "So, it’s not necessarily fair of me to present my own TBI (traumatic brain injury) as an apples-to-apples comparison with Fetterman's. I also understand that millions of my fellow Americans are bad patients: the inevitable result of a health care system that is both predatory and often unworthy of our trust."

Magary continues, "But this man, unlike most of us, is a sitting U.S. senator. A senator who won't take his meds, won't operate within the limits of his physical and mental health, and appears to have no interest in ever getting better when the people who work for him and the people who love him are begging him to try. Other TBI survivors are free to bail on recovering, but this man is a public servant whose actions resonate out of the Keystone State and across the entire country. John Fetterman is duty-bound to be a good patient; he and his colleagues take an oath of office that necessitates it."

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Magary also argues that by representing Pennsylvania — a key swing state — Fetterman has too much power in the Senate.

"You and I should never have to worry about Pennsylvania," Magary writes. "It’s a dull, gray state that exists three time zones away from California and is populated by needy, hostile people. But because we live in a swing state-ocracy where control for every branch of the federal government is decided by the thinnest of margins in our most inessential states, we have the grave misfortune of having to not only care about Pennsylvania more often than sensible doctors recommend, but to care about the politicians who represent it."

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Read Drew Magary's full SFGate column at this link.

During the 2024 presidential race, many Democrats warned that if Donald Trump won, cuts to important safety-net programs would be on the table. Trump, however, insisted that he wouldn't cut either Social Security or Medicare.

Now that President Trump is back in the White House, GOP lawmakers are proposing major Medicaid cuts. And according to Politico, they "have managed to unite two health industry sectors normally at war: insurers and hospitals."

In an article published on April 10, Politico reporters Kelly Hooper and Daniel Payne explain, "Lobbyists for both industries, faced with the prospect of losing billions of dollars in fees, are scrambling to convince lawmakers that tens of millions of low-income Americans who rely on the program will suffer. The cuts proposed in a House Republican budget blueprint could run as high as $880 billion over 10 years — more than 10 percent of federal Medicaid spending."

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The lobbyists, according to Hooper and Payne, "are leaning into the argument that it's voters, even more than their businesses, that are going to revolt."

"The alliance of the two industries highlights the magnitude of the potential threat they face," the Politico journalists report. "The groups are racing to protect their bottom lines as hospitals consider having to care for more uninsured people and insurers foresee reduced enrollment in their plans. Health care providers and groups representing them are pressing meetings on Capitol Hill — more than 150 hospitals sent representatives to Washington in March — and launching six-figure ad campaigns in the Washington media market urging lawmakers to avoid cuts."

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), Hooper and Payne note, is among the Democrats who is "hammering the GOP" on possible Medicaid cuts.

Murray recently told reporters, "Cuts to Medicaid at the scale Republicans are directing will mean hospitals and clinics — especially in our rural areas — will close their doors."

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Read the full Politico article at this link.

A Northern Kentuckian has died from rabies, the Kentucky Department for Public Health announced Friday.

It’s unclear how the person contracted rabies, which is typically transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal.

The person was treated both in Kentucky and Ohio, the department said, so both states are coordinating an investigation into the case with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials are also working to notify anyone who came in contact with the person, whose age and gender was not disclosed.

This case is the first confirmed case of rabies infection in a human being in Kentucky since 1996, the public health department said.

“Rabies is a rare but serious disease caused by a virus that infects the brain,” Dr. Steven Stack, Kentucky’s public health commissioner, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, if left untreated, rabies is usually fatal. Immediate medical care after a suspected exposure to rabies is critical, as rabies treatment called post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, is nearly 100% effective at preventing rabies.”

Symptoms of rabies include confusion, agitation and coma. Anyone who comes across a wild animal should avoid contact, the health department advised. Pets should also stay up to date on vaccinations for protection against rabies.

Anyone who thinks they have been exposed to rabies should call their health care provider immediately.

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.