Note to readers: There will be no Friday report this week due to the Fourth of July holiday. Happy Independence Day!

From Washington, DC

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “The House narrowly passed Republicans’ sprawling tax-and-spending bill, delivering a major second-term victory for President Trump and again demonstrating his power to keep GOP lawmakers in line. 
  • “The 218-214 vote Thursday sends the measure to Trump’s desk, ahead of the July 4 target he set for Congress to finish the legislation that cuts taxes, boosts border security and lowers social safety-net spending. Trump and GOP leaders muscled the bill through the House after an all-night session, despite many lawmakers’ misgivings about the version the Senate passed 51-50 earlier this week.
  • “Two Republicans—Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania—voted with all Democrats against the “one big, beautiful bill.” The vote followed a long day of negotiations with conservative and moderate holdouts, as Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) eventually swayed enough members to prevail.
  • “We’ve had spirited debates, we’ve had months of deliberations, and now we are finally ready to fulfill our promise to the American people,” Johnson said.”

• The Akin Gump law firm offers a summary of the key tax and healthcare provisions of the One Big Beautiful bill.

• Govexec tells us,
  • “A postal advocacy group is asking the U.S. Postal Service to pause a planned July 13 increase in the price of stamps until after the new postmaster general begins his tenure. 
  • “Keep US Posted, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents consumers, nonprofits and newspapers, among other entities, in a July 3 letter backed a freeze on mailing rates until Waste Management CEO and FedEx board member David Steiner takes the helm of USPS, which is slated for the day after stamps increase to 78 cents. 
  • “We believe it is counterproductive for another postage surge to take place immediately before you undertake leadership of the Postal Service, as it will deprive you of the ability to thoroughly assess, and potentially rectify, one of the most destructive policies in [former Postmaster General Louis] DeJoy’s Delivering for America plan,” wrote former Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., the executive director of Keep US Posted.” 

• Bloomberg Law informs us,
  • “The Department of Labor’s federal contractor watchdog will resume action on complaints under regulations prohibiting bias against veterans and disabled workers. 
  • ‘Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer lifted a hold on the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ enforcement work that had been in place since January, the agency said Wednesday. 
  • “The agency’s enforcement of Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Act were paused after President Donald Trump rescinded the decades-old executive order that gave the agency authority to police and audit race and sex bias at companies that do business with the government. 
  • “Enforcement of Section 503 and VEVRAA regulations was not upended by the Trump order since those OFCCP duties were statutorily established.
  • “Chavez-DeRemer said Section 503 and VEVRAA complaints that were held up during the period of abeyance will resume processing immediately and complaints filed during the pause will move forward normally.”

• Per MedPage Today,
  • The FDA cleared an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered wristband (Felix NeuroAI) to treat upper-limb functional limitations in adults with essential tremor, device maker Fasikl announcedopens in a new tab or window.
  • The noninvasive, wearable peripheral nerve stimulator connects to a cloud-based AI platform and incorporates patient recordings to continuously adjust settings, allowing therapy to be personalized.
  • Essential tremor is one of the most common types of movement disorders, affecting approximately 7 million people in the U.S.

From the public health and medical research front,

• Health Day warns,
  • “Tens of thousands of people suffer needless heart attacks and strokes every year because they aren’t taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, a new study says.
  • “More than 39,000 deaths, nearly 100,000 non-fatal heart attacks and up to 65,000 strokes in the U.S. could be prevented if people eligible for statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs were taking them, researchers reported June 30 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
  • “Nearly half of Americans (47%) who’ve never had a heart attack or stroke are eligible to take statins under U.S. guidelines, researchers found.
  • But fewer than a quarter (23%) of them have been prescribed the life-saving drugs, results show.
  • “A substantial number of heart attack or stroke survivors also aren’t taking the drugs, even though all are eligible for them under U.S. guidelines, researchers said.
  • “These results add to a growing body of evidence that there are important shortcomings in the quality of care for common and costly chronic diseases such as high cholesterol, and that addressing those shortcomings would yield major public health benefits,” lead researcher Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a news release.”

• The New York Times reports,
  • “Screening can be a powerful weapon against cancer, helping catch some tumors months, or even years, before a person would feel sick enough to see a doctor.
  • “There are many different types of cancer, but the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a group of independent medical experts, only recommends regular screening for four types: lung, breast, colorectal and cervical. For this quartet, the task force has found that regular screening can save lives without exposing too many people to false alarms, additional testing or unnecessary treatments.
  • “Screening is on the front lines of reducing deaths from cancer,” said Robert Smith, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society.” * * *
  • “For some cancer types like skin, oral and bladder, there’s not enough evidence to recommend one way or another. In other cases — like ovarian, pancreatic, testicular, and thyroid cancers — the task force has found that screening people without symptoms can lead to too many false positives and complications without reducing people’s risk of death.
  • “For that reason, the task force recommends against screening older men for prostate cancer but says that men ages 55 to 69 should talk with their doctor to discuss the harms and benefits. Most prostate cancers grow so slowly that they would never be an issue, Dr. Reid said. While screening can find these tumors, it risks a cascade of unnecessary treatments and complications, such as rectal bleeding and impotence.
  • “Sometimes, the treatment is worse than having the cancer,” Dr. Reid said.”
• and
  • “Drinking is harmful to your health at any age. But as you get older, the risks become greater — even with the same amount of drinks.
  • “Alcohol affects “virtually every organ system in the body,” including the muscles and blood vessels, digestive system, heart and brain, said Sara Jo Nixon, the director of the Center for Addiction Research & Education at the University of Florida. “It particularly impacts older adults, because there’s already some decline or impact in those areas.”
  • “There’s a whole different set” of health risk factors for older drinkers, said Paul Sacco, a professor of social work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore who studies substance use and aging. People might not realize that the drinks they used to tolerate well are now affecting their brains and bodies differently, he said.” * * *
  • “Drinking alcohol can increase the risk of developing chronic conditions like dementia, diabetes, cancer, hypertension and heart disease. But it can also worsen outcomes for the majority of older adults already living with chronic disease, said Aryn Phillips, an assistant professor of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois Chicago who studies alcohol and aging. * * *
  • “If you’re not currently drinking, don’t start,” Dr. Phillips said. And if you do drink, be honest with your doctor about your consumption, and do it in a safe environment, knowing that your tolerance may not be what it used to be, she added.
  • “The answer doesn’t have to be abstinence,” Dr. Nixon said. But healthy aging “probably does not include multiple drinks a day for most people.”
    
• Gastroenterology Advisor lets us know, “Development of gallstones and metabolic disorders, including obesity, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), diabetes, and hypertension, are related, according to study results published in Journal of Digestive Diseases.”
  • “The study authors noted, “[W]e revealed a significant increase in the prevalence of gallstone disease in the United States over the past years, which was potentially linked to a rising occurrence of metabolic disorders.” However, they concluded, “Further studies are necessary to evaluate the causal relationship and the underlying mechanisms involved in these conditions.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • The [One Big Beautiful] bill reduces the power of states to boost Medicaid payments to hospitals. 
  • States have increasingly imposed taxes on hospitals to trigger Medicaid matching funds from the federal government. Hospitals would typically balk at such levies, but in this case hospitals typically get back more money than they pay out in the form of higher payment rates.
  • The megabill reduces the maximum tax rate from 6% of hospitals’ net patient revenue to 3.5% in the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Nonexpansion states will have their state “provider taxes” frozen in place at the time the bill is signed.
• This is excerpted from a Journal article about corporate winners and losers from enactment of the One Big Beautiful bill.
• The Journal also discusses “what Trump’s Megabill means for you. How parents, retirees, tipped workers, Medicaid recipients and more will be affected.”

• Per Beckers Hospital Review,
  • “Hospital and health system margins have stabilized for the moment, but a variety of factors could change that in coming months.
  • “Data from Strata Decision Technology, which gathers information monthly from more than 1,600 hospitals, found health system operating margins were around 1% for the fifth consecutive month in May while hospital margins grew by less than 1%. Hospitals in the West and Midwest reported slight margin declines while hospitals in the South reported 3.6 percentage points gained in average margins; hospitals in the Northeast reported 1.3 percentage point gains.
  • “Hospital size matters as well. Hospitals with 300-499 beds reported average margin increase of 2.6 percentage points while larger hospitals of 500 beds or more reported a 2.6 percentage point average margin decrease in May. The average margin for hospitals with less than 25 beds dropped 3.3 percentage points.
  • “Gross hospital revenue grew consistently as well, but gains were offset by increased expenses. Overall expenses were up nationwide year over year, driven by higher drug costs. Average total drug expenses increased 8.7% over the last year. Month over month, drug expenses jumped 0.7% while other non-labor expenses decreased slightly.”
• and
  • lists the 18 hospital and emergency department closures in 2025 about which Beckers has reported. Most recently,
    • “St. Louis-based St. Luke’s Des Peres Hospital, a 143-bed acute care facility, will close on Aug. 1 due to low utilization and increased financial pressures.
    • “Stilwell (Okla.) Memorial Hospital and its clinic shuttered, ABC affiliate KTUL reported June 21. An employee told the news outlet the hospital will close June 27 and the clinic will shut down 30 days later.”