Our reporters offer key takeaways from one of the biggest health care events of the year.
Melanie Evans
Melanie is a reporter and producer for Tradeoffs. She spent eight years at The Wall Street Journal, where she reported on hospital costs, health care quality and the Covid-19 pandemic. Before the Journal, Melanie covered health policy and business for Modern Healthcare and began her career at the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota, her home state. Her coverage has won awards from the New York Press Club, Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing and Association of Health Care Journalists. She lives in New York.
Posted inPublic Health
Trump’s Policies Could Undermine the Fight to End America’s HIV Epidemic
The White House is asking Congress to sharply roll back federal spending on HIV prevention, a reversal from President Trump’s first term, when he championed investment to end the epidemic in America within a decade.
Posted inPublic Health
RFK Jr. Just Replaced the Experts Guiding U.S. Vaccines. Now What?
The Health and Human Services chief’s latest action on vaccinations is unprecedented, and quickly drew condemnation from medical groups who said his dismissal of the vaccine advisory committee put public health at risk. Here’s why the members of that committee are so important.
Posted inPublic Health
Fighting Measles and Anti-Vax Views in West Texas
Katherine Wells, the public health director in Lubbock, Texas, describes her fight to stop the largest measles outbreak since 2000 despite a chaotic reorganization of federal health agencies.
Posted inPublic Health
How RFK Jr. is Upending Public Health
Two months on the job, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has plowed forward with mass firings, funding cuts and policy shifts. The most immediate effect is across state and local health agencies, where officials say they see new cracks in safeguards against diseases.
Posted inCost of Care
Patients and Employers Support This GOP Budget Cut. Hospitals Say It’s Too Risky.
Medicare would save billions of dollars changing how it pays for routine medical care. Patients would save, too, but rural hospitals could see financial losses.
Posted inCost of Care
This Budget Cut Would Save Medicare Patients Money. But Can Rural Hospitals Afford It?
Medicare often pays clinics owned by hospitals at least double the amount it pays independent clinics for the exact same medical care. Ending that practice would save money for taxpayers and patients, but critics say it could also push rural hospitals to cut services or close.
Posted inPublic Health
RFK Jr. Wants to Change What Americans Eat. He’s Not The First.
The fight to improve Americans’ nutrition could get new momentum from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but he will face practical and political limits to changing U.S. food supply if he’s confirmed to lead the Health and Human Services Department.
Posted inPublic Health
The Powerful Vaccine Committee RFK Jr. Could Soon Control
If the Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a vaccine skeptic — to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, he would control an influential group of federal vaccine advisors.
Posted inHealth Law
Trump Forced Hospitals and Insurers to Reveal Their Prices. What Happened?
President Trump is revisiting one of the signature health policies of his first administration: making health care prices public. It hasn’t gone smoothly. Now Trump is calling for new rules and more public prices to deliver on his goal of a more competitive — less costly — health care market.