From Washington, DC,

• Tomorrow at 11 am ET, the House Appropriations Committee will consider its subcommittee’s print of the appropriations bill for financial services and general government, including the Office of Personnel Management for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2027.

• The subcommittee’s print includes the standard appropriations provisions exempting FEHB and PSHB carriers from full Cost Accounting Standards coverage (Sec. 611) and limiting abortion coverage to cases when carrying the fetus to term would endanger the mother’s life or the pregnancy results from rape or incest (the Hyde amendment, Secs. 613, 614). The bill (Sec. 761) also states “None of the funds made available by this Act, or in any previous appropriation, may be provided for in insurance plans in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program to cover the cost of surgical procedures or puberty blockers or hormone therapy for the purpose of gender affirming care.” The bill no longer includes the contraception mandate that OPM treated as overridden by the ACA’s contraception mandate. 

• Federal News Network reports,
  • “The Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration — the federal government’s human resources office and landlord, respectively — are embarking on plans to move under one roof.
  • “GSA will temporarily relocate to OPM’s headquarters, the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building, starting in July, while GSA’s 1800 F St. headquarters goes through a renovation.
  • “In December 2028, GSA will move back into its renovated headquarters, along with OPM. Once consolidation is complete, GSA says it will initiate an “accelerated disposal” of OPM’s old headquarters building.” * * *
    “The first Trump administration proposed merging OPM and GSA into a single agency, but ultimately walked away from those plans. In addition to managing a governmentwide real estate portfolio, GSA provides contracting and IT support to other federal agencies.
  • “OPM Director Scott Kupor said there are no talks of a possible merger of the two agencies.”
• and
  • “House and Senate Democrats are urging the Office of Personnel Management to halt its plans for collecting detailed medical data on potentially millions of enrollees in the government’s health insurance programs.
  • “Citing “significant legal, ethical and security concerns,” two recent letters sent to Trump administration officials identified potential legal violations and the possibility of targeting enrollees across the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) and Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) programs.
  • “The collection of broad, personally identifiable data regarding medical care and treatment raises concerns that OPM could target certain federal employees seeking vital health care services that the administration disagrees with on political grounds,” House Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote in an April 17 letter, addressed to OPM and the Office of Management and Budget.
  • “This proposal is another step in the stated goal of traumatizing the federal workforce,” Senate Democrats, led by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), wrote in a separate April 19 letter to OPM Director Scott Kupor. “We are deeply concerned this information will be used in employment actions, including actions related to hiring, suitability determinations, appeals, reductions in force, disability accommodation requests, labor-management relations and performance reviews.”

• Roll Call adds,
  • “Senate Republicans plan to release their budget resolution and take a procedural vote as early as Tuesday, kicking off the cumbersome process for a reconciliation bill designed to help end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
  • “Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R.S.D., said Monday he hopes to confine the bill to the narrow mission of funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. “

• HR DIve relates,
  • “Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned on Monday, she confirmed in a post to her official X account, ending her tenure after just over one full year leading the U.S. Department of Labor.
  • “Chavez-DeRemer’s departure followed recent reports that the agency’s inspector general had launched an investigation into her potential misconduct, including contact between her family and department staff. Similar previous inquiries reportedly led to the departure of employees including Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff and deputy chief of staff.
  • “Chavez-DeRemer said in her post Monday that under her watch, DOL “created new pathways to mortgage-paying jobs, prepared workers to excel in the age of AI, took steps to lower prescription drug costs, promoted retirement security, and so much more.” A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

• The American Hospital Association News tells us
  • “Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, M.D., and CMS Deputy Administrator and Director of Medicaid and CHIP Dan Brillman sat down with Bill Gassen, president and CEO of Sanford Health and AHA chair-elect, for a discussion about the changes that have occurred in CMS in the past year, as well as how they intend to move forward.  
  • Oz described the agency’s focus this year on working with insurers to reduce the need for prior authorizations. In addition, both Oz and Brillman spoke on the agency’s drive to reduce unnecessary spending; Oz estimated that 5% of CMS’ budget, or about $100 billion, is lost to fraud, waste and abuse.  
  • “Brillman spoke on the new community engagement standards that require most Medicaid recipients to perform a certain number of employment or volunteer hours to maintain their eligibility for benefits, which Brillman said provides “paths to prosperity” for beneficiaries, saying, “if we get someone a higher income so they no longer need services, that’s a win for all Americans.” 
  • “Technology, especially the use of artificial intelligence, was also acknowledged as an important advancement, with Oz saying that current technology offers “a generational opportunity to fix health care,” noting that “I do not see a way to make health care as great as it could be without AI.”  
  • “Oz spoke on last year’s Rural Health Transformation Fund, saying that the infusion of $50 billion over five years will have nationwide effects. “The learnings will accrue to urban centers,” he said. “[The fund] is creating a sandbox in rural areas, and what you learn will benefit all of you.” 

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• Health Day reports,
  • “Reaching for the salt shaker could have long-lasting implications for your memory and brain health, a new study says.
  • “Higher sodium intake appears to affect episodic memory, the type of memory used to recall personal experiences and specific events from your past, researchers report in the June issue of the journal Neurobiology of Aging.
  • “This effect – which could cause one to forget anything from where they parked the car to their first day of school – occurred mainly among men, researchers found.
  • “No such associations were observed among women in the study, researchers said.”

• The American Medical Association lets us know seven things patients should know about protein maxxing.

• Healio relates,
  • “Prescriptions for direct-acting antivirals to treat hepatitis C virus in the U.S. have declined substantially since 2015 and remain well below the approximately 260,000 annual treatment courses needed to meet the target for elimination.
  • “Results of a national cross-sectional analysis showed annual treatment volume trending alongside HCV infection rate, rather than surpassing it.
  • “We’re roughly treating the same number of people each year as there are new infections,” Sanjay Kishore, MD, assistant professor at University of Virginia School of Medicine, told Healio. “We’re essentially just holding steady and not actually making any progress.” * * *
  • “I think we need to think creatively about using things like mobile clinics to take care of people. We need to really lean into telehealth on this issue, and we need to expand screening to places where people are getting addiction treatment. Maybe instead of a hospital, it’s a rehab facility or a syringe exchange. We need to make it easier to connect with clinicians and get treatment to meet people where they are.”
    
• MedPage Today tells us,
  • “Adults whose type 2 diabetes was treated with GLP-1 receptor agonists were more than likely to develop cognitive impairment over 10 years than their counterparts not treated with GLP-1 agents, a propensity-matched retrospective study of nearly 65,000 patients suggested.”
• and
  • “Lower hemoglobin levels were linked with higher dementia risk over 9 years of follow-up.
  • “Anemia was associated with elevated Alzheimer’s blood biomarkers including p-tau217 and neurofilament light chain.
  • “Dementia risk was highest when anemia coexisted with abnormal Alzheimer’s biomarkers.”
    
• BioPharma Dive offers news from the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research and informs us,
  • “An experimental autoimmune drug from Nektar Therapeutics helped people with alopecia areata who’d already responded to the treatment in a Phase 2 trial grow more hair as time went on, the company said Monday.
  • “The data released Monday measured hair regrowth after 52 weeks of treatment with the therapy, known as rezpegaldesleukin. Nektar disclosed last year that the therapy failed to show a statistically significant benefit over a placebo after 36 weeks. The company, though, blamed that result on the inclusion of four patients that shouldn’t have been eligible and said the findings supported additional development.”

• Fierce Pharma points out,
  • “Sanofi’s protein-based vaccine Nuvaxovid has conquered Moderna’s next-generation messenger RNA shot mNexspike in a head-to-head trial assessing the tolerability of the two COVID vaccines.
  • “In the phase 4 double-blind, real-world study, which included 1,000 adult participants in the United States, Nuvaxovid showed statistically significant fewer side effects across all pre-specified endpoints.
  • “Symptomatic reactions with Nuvaxovid were both milder and shorter than with mNexspike. Additionally, less than 10% of those who received Nuvaxovid experienced severe side effects—such as fatigue, headache or fever which prevented them from conducting their daily activities—compared to 20% of those who got mNexspike. As for injection site symptoms such as pain, redness and swelling, they were more than 75% more frequent for those who received Moderna’s shot.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• ‘Per a Lockton news release,
  • “Lockton’s eighth annual survey of over 1,700 U.S. employers helps employers compare their benefit strategies with those of other employers -providing benchmark data, highlighting trends, and illuminating new ideas.
  • “As healthcare costs rise and economic pressures mount, cost is a defining reality for employers. The 2026 Lockton National Benefits Survey shows a rapid acceleration of a shift that first took hold last year – cost management decidedly the top priority vs the next ranked priority – attracting and retaining talent. The data shows how employers are searching for an answer to their need for cost containment solutions.
  • “To gain further insights into the 2026 survey findings, you can access the executive summary here.”

• The Peterson / KFF Health System Trackers identifies recent trends in employer-based health coverage.
  • “Key takeaways include:
    • “In March 2025, 60.0% of the non-elderly, or about 165.6 million people, had employer sponsored insurance or ESI. 
    • “About four in five (80.4%) adult non-elderly workers worked for an employer that offered ESI to at least some employees, a share that has been consistent over recent years. 
    • “The share of workers eligible for ESI at their job declined slightly over the past few years, from 75.3% in March 2023 to 74.6% in March 2025. 
    • “Most eligible workers who do not take up ESI offered at work cite other coverage (63.0%) and cost (30.2%) as the reason.”  

• Beckers Hospital Review tells us,
  • “As more care shifts outside hospital walls, health system leaders are rethinking how they plan, staff and structure their workforces to support a rapidly expanding ambulatory footprint.
  • “Outpatient services accounted for 57% of hospital revenues in 2024, up from 52% in 2020, according to the American Hospital Association. The AHA’s Sg2 forecasting model projects outpatient volumes will grow another 17% over the next decade. At the same time, many health systems are accelerating ambulatory investments in 2026 to support financial sustainability and expand access closer to home.”

• MedCity News notes that “Expanding the CJR Model Is a Logical Step in Value Based Care, but Implementation Challenges Remain.”
  • “CMS is proposing to make its joint replacement bundled payment model mandatory nationwide. Experts say it is a logical step, but warn that mandatory participation could be challenging for hospitals to implement.”

• Healthcare Dive relates,
  • “Physician burnout continues to decline across the U.S., a bright spot for an occupation plagued by heavy workloads, pervasive stress and high stakes. But the improvement is not equal across medical specialties, according to new data from the American Medical Association.
  • “The AMA surveyed thousands of physicians and found that 41.9% reported experiencing a burnout symptom in 2025, down from 43.2% in 2024 and 48.2% in 2023. The decline likely reflects employer efforts to reduce burnout, including by increasing job satisfaction, the medical association said.
  • “However, burnout rates vary significantly across specialties, and tend to be higher among doctors employed by hospitals, suggesting health systems could be doing more to ameliorate the phenomenon.”

• Fierce Healthcare informs us,
  • “UnitedHealthcare is building on its work to support rural hospitals and will now exempt these facilities from most prior authorizations.
  • “The insurance giant said in an announcement on Monday that the shift will apply across all lines of business. In addition, UHC will accelerate payments by up to 50% for about 1,500 rural hospitals and all critical access hospitals across the country.”
• and
  • “Just over two years ago, Highmark joined forces with Spring Health to launch a new mental well-being platform that made it far easier for members to access critical services.
  • “Now, the partners are offering a look at how that program has worked for members. In a paper published last month, researchers at Highmark reported that patients waited less than two days on average in 2025 to access an appointment.
  • “Spring’s platform is embedded directly into Highmark’s member app, and that integration was a key part of what made the program work, according to the analysis. Members can easily find mental well-being tools and complete a self-assessment upon connecting for the first time, which allows Spring to build a personalized approach.”

• The Wall Street Journal points out,
  • “Eli Lilly struck a deal to acquire Kelonia Therapeutics for $3.25 billion upfront and up to $7 billion if certain milestones are reached. 
  • “Kelonia is developing a next-generation CAR-T therapy for multiple myeloma, which promises to transform treatment without chemotherapy.
  • “The acquisition positions Eli Lilly to enter a lucrative segment of the global cancer-drug market and bolster its cancer offerings.”

• MedTech Dive adds,
  • “Medtronic said Monday it has closed the acquisition of CathWorks, a deal worth $585 million with potential undisclosed earn-out payments.
  • “The transaction, agreed to in February, continues a strategy of increasing acquisitions to strengthen the company’s leadership in its core businesses, Medtronic said.
  • “CathWorks’ FFRangio system uses artificial intelligence and computational science to assess the entire coronary tree from routine angiograms that image the blood vessels.”