Senate HELP Committee holds surgeon general nomination hearing. Throughout the nomination hearing for Casey Means, MD, members from both parties raised concerns about healthcare affordability, prescription drug costs, and the high prevalence of chronic disease. Democratic committee members questioned whether Means would prioritize patients over corporate interests, while Republican committee members emphasized the need for more chronic disease prevention and expressed support for Means given her background in metabolic health and lifestyle medicine. Means highlighted that prevention and metabolic health reforms can reduce healthcare costs in the long run. In her testimony and throughout the hearing, Means emphasized the importance of transparency in healthcare decision-making, food system reform, and the physician-patient relationship. Members also addressed vaccines and autism rates. Chair Cassidy (R-LA), Sen. Murkowski (R-AK), and Democratic members affirmed that diseases such as measles, flu, and hepatitis B are preventable by safe and effective vaccines, and democrats and Chair Cassidy asked Means whether vaccines are linked to autism. Means stated that autism rates are increasing each year and that contributing factors should be studied, but she did not state that vaccines cause autism.
House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee discusses how to advance the healthcare workforce. During the hearing, witnesses supported increasing graduate medical education payment rates for rural hospitals, emphasizing that physicians who train in rural areas are more likely to stay in rural areas. Republican committee members noted the importance of increasing and retaining residents and physicians in rural areas and raised concerns about rural hospitals relying on foreign-born residents on H1B visas for staffing. Democratic committee members voiced concerns about Medicaid cuts that will harm physicians, hospitals, and patients who rely on them. Democrats also expressed concerns about the end of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cap on student loans.
Senate Aging Committee analyzes FDA regulations’ impact on innovation. During the hearing, several committee members framed FDA delays as a regulatory and bureaucratic problem requiring oversight and reform. Democrats raised concerns about maintaining scientific integrity and ensuring that safety standards are not compromised in the push for faster approvals, while Republican committee members emphasized urgency in rare disease treatment approvals, arguing that delays result in irreversible harm and preventable deaths. All the witnesses stated that Congress has already provided the FDA with sufficient statutory flexibility, but implementation is often inconsistent and unpredictable.
Senate HELP Committee holds markup of organ transplantation system and healthcare cybersecurity legislation. The markup session discussed four bills, including two healthcare bills, which passed 22 – 1, with Sen. Paul (R-KY) voting no.
House Appropriations Committee releases FY 2027 guidance. Committee Chair Cole (R-OK) released the committee’s fiscal year (FY) 2027 guidance, outlining the framework and deadlines for members’ community project funding (CPF, also known as earmarks), programmatic funding, and report language requests. The guidance marks the return of Labor-HHS earmarks after a multiyear ban, with eligibility limited to projects under HRSA. The deadline for members to submit requests for the Labor-HHS bill is March 20, 2026. The Labor-HHS Subcommittee’s CPF guidance discusses eligibility for HRSA health facilities construction and equipment projects. Eligible projects include limited scope construction, renovation, or capital equipment purchases for facilities providing health, mental health, or substance use disorder services, as well as for training health professionals or conducting medical research; allowable equipment purchases include items such as laboratory equipment, x ray machines, and telehealth or information technology systems. Eligible recipients include state, local, and tribal governments and nonprofit entities that are certified rural health clinics, Federally Qualified Health Centers, designated Critical Access Hospitals, or hospitals located in areas meeting HRSA’s rural definition. Entities are ineligible if they perform or promote abortions (including by providing referrals), conduct research using embryonic stem cells, or facilitate or promote access to gender affirming care.
Members are limited to 20 total CPF requests across all appropriations bills. They must provide a written statement of federal nexus and evidence of community support, and remain subject to the ban on earmarks for for-profit entities. Stakeholders with appropriations requests should connect with their legislators soon, as individual office deadlines are earlier than the committee deadline. Across the Capitol, we await the release of FY 2027 guidance from the Senate Appropriations Committee.
President Trump delivers State of the Union address. On February 24, 2026, President Trump delivered the longest State of the Union (SOTU) address on record. While healthcare was not the central focus of the address, the president did discuss prescription drugs; affordability and transparency; fraud, waste, and abuse; and gender-affirming care. President Trump called on Congress to codify his Great Healthcare Plan, highlighting its affordability and transparency provisions, including a proposal to direct healthcare payments to consumers rather than insurance companies. He also called on Congress to codify his most-favored-nation drug pricing policies (while noting that codification might not be necessary) and highlighted the launch of TrumpRx.gov, a platform that provides direct-to-consumer prices on certain prescription drugs. The president addressed fraud in public programs in Minnesota, California, Massachusetts, and Maine, and announced a “war on fraud” in federal and state programs to be led by Vice President Vance.
HHS announces antifraud actions, releases RFI. The day after the SOTU, the White House and HHS announced efforts to crack down on fraud, waste, and abuse in federal programs, including deferring $259.5 million of quarterly federal Medicaid funding in Minnesota, stating that the action is designed to prevent payment of questionable claims while the fraud investigation continues. At a press conference, Vice President Vance and CMS Administrator Oz urged Americans to support fraud prevention through the Comprehensive Regulations to Uncover Suspicious Healthcare (CRUSH) initiative. They invited stakeholder input on how CMS can further expand and strengthen its program integrity efforts.
CMS also announced a six-month nationwide moratorium on Medicare enrollment for certain durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies suppliers. The agency released a notice outlining rationale for the moratorium and addressing specific concerns about medical supply companies and certain types of supplies. CMS believes certain medical supply companies have significant potential for fraud, waste, or abuse, and that a moratorium on the enrollment of medical supply companies into Medicare could assist CMS stemming this activity. The moratorium will go into effect upon publication of the notice in the Federal Register.
CMS also released a request for information (RFI) to inform the CRUSH initiative. Comments are due March 30, 2026.
CMS hosts Burden Reduction Conference. The conference focused on evaluating opportunities to reduce administrative burden and strengthen access to quality care, with a goal of improving the healthcare experience for clinicians and patients. The event consisted of:
Experts emphasized the need to modernize infrastructure, improve data exchange, and adopt new technologies (especially AI) in order to strengthen transparency, coordination, and chronic care management, while stressing the central importance of trust, privacy, and human oversight. Panelists noted that pharmacists, nursing homes, acute care settings, and long term care providers often operate in silos because of poor interoperability infrastructure, which prevents seamless collaboration and undermines patient outcomes. CMS continues to gather stakeholder input to determine a path forward on burden reduction.
HRSA extends comment deadline for 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program RFI. After feedback from stakeholders, HRSA extended the comment deadline for the 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program RFI until April 20, 2026. The RFI seeks to inform next steps in the development and implementation of 340B rebate models. The original comment deadline was March 19, 2026.
The House and the Senate are both scheduled to be in session next week. With the SOTU address in the rearview mirror, we await the release of the president’s FY 2027 budget request to see whether it includes additional details on any health-focused policies.
Hearings of note next week include the following:
Both the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Payment and Access Commission will hold two-day public meetings next week.
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