• President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing HHS, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Labor to "rapidly implement and enforce" healthcare price transparency regulations. Trump's first administration finalized rules requiring hospitals to post their negotiated prices for various services online and for health insurers to post their negotiated rates for services. As of November, less than a quarter of hospitals had satisfied all the requirements of the rules. A White House fact sheet said the federal agencies will ensure "hospitals and insurers disclose actual prices, not estimates, and take action to make prices comparable across hospitals and insurers, including prescription drug prices." (Goldman, Axios, 2/25; Herman, STAT+ [subscription required], 2/25)
• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week released guidance saying that HHS will define sex as an "immutable biological classification" and will only recognize males and females. This guidance builds on President Trump's executive order seeking to stop recognizing the concept of gender identity by requiring the agency to provide "clear guidance expanding on the sex-based definitions set forth in the order" within 30 days. The guidance included various definitions that will be used by HHS, including defining "father" as a male parent and "mother" as a female parent, adding that a woman is "an adult human female" and a man is "an adult human male." Kennedy said that the narrower definitions restore "biological truth to the federal government," adding that the "prior administration's policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over." (Goldman, Axios, 2/19; Christensen, CNN, 2/20)
• Mehmet Oz, President Trump's nominee to lead CMS, pledged in a filing with the Office of Government Ethics to sell most of his multimillion-dollar holdings in various healthcare companies and in two artificial intelligence firms if he is confirmed in the role. Currently, Oz holds shares in several companies, including HCA Healthcare and UnitedHealth Group,* and has invested in the pharmaceutical companies Abbvie and Eli Lilly. In the filing, Oz said that he would divest from those companies within 90 days if he is confirmed as CMS administrator. (Craig/Abelson, New York Times, 2/19; Reed, Axios, 2/20; Bannow, STAT+ [subscription required], 2/19)
• Some probationary employees at FDA who were included in the mass firings at HHS earlier this month who oversaw medical devices, food ingredients, and other key areas received calls and emails saying their terminations had been "rescinded effective immediately," according to messages reviewed by the Associated Press. FDA staffers said that entire teams of five or more medical device reviewers had been reinstated, and at least 10 staffers responsible for reviewing the safety of new food ingredients had been reinstated. FDA hasn't released official numbers on its terminations, but former officials have said roughly 700 employees were fired, with more than 220 coming from the agency's medical device center. (Jewett, New York Times, 2/24; Perrone, Associated Press, 2/24)
• The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 217-215 to pass a budget resolution instructing House committees to come up with budget cuts or extend tax cuts. Specifically, the resolution instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees both Medicaid and Medicare, to cut $880 billion from the federal budget, a number that will likely require cuts to Medicaid, according to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). "You would actually cut programs, cut the social safety net, cut the things that matter to working class Americans, middle class Americans, young people, seniors and others, including up to, if not more, $880 billion of cuts to Medicaid," Jeffries said during the floor debate. "That's the largest cut to Medicaid in American history." However, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) noted that "the word Medicaid is not even in this bill." Following the passage of the resolution, Senate Republicans have said they're aiming to make big changes to the bill. "It's complicated. It's hard. Nothing about this is going to be easy," said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). "There are some things that we need to work with the House package to expand upon." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said the Senate will have to embark on a "major overhaul" of the House's proposal. "I'm not going to vote for Medicaid cuts," said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). "It'll need to be changed. I know there's a lot of people on our side who want a bunch of changes." (Tong, Fierce Healthcare, 2/25; McAuliff, Modern Healthcare, 2/25; Weaver, The Hill, 2/27)

Advisory Board's health policy resources

• Follow our coverage to learn how the new administration is approaching healthcare
• 4 strategic pivots for 2025 (and beyond)
• Radio Advisory: Big deal, little deal, or no deal? A 2024 health policy retrospective
• The state of the industry: What healthcare leaders need to know for 2025 (on-demand recording)
• Will Trump's healthcare appointments bring 'radical changes'?