By CELINE GOUNDER
Photos by ERIC HARKLEROAD

President Donald Trump will soon nominate a permanent director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, its acting chief, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, told agency employees at a Wednesday staff meeting.

According to a recording obtained by KFF Health News, Bhattacharya at one point suggested to CDC staff that Trump could name a new leader for the agency as soon as Thursday. “But if not, I don’t think much will change,” he said.

Though his official position as acting director was set to expire Wednesday, Bhattacharya will continue to lead the agency until the top spot is filled. Meanwhile, news outlets including Axios and  [Read More]

By JULIE APPLEBY

Complaints about enrollment fraud in Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage have bedeviled the federal marketplace for years.

Now, the Trump administration is claiming wins in reducing the problem while simultaneously saying more controls are needed.

It has proposed a sweeping set of ACA regulations for next year, including stepped-up requirements for some applicants to prove eligibility for subsidies or enrollment and new scrutiny of sales agents and marketing practices.

While there is a general acknowledgment that there is fraud in the ACA marketplace, some health policy analysts say these new requirements miss that mark and instead will make it harder for people who are eligible to enroll.

“There is a trade-off, particularly with [Read More]

By ALLAN DOBZYNIAK, MD
R.F.K. Jr. is mandating nutrition education for medical students. Certainly nutrition is an important part of health. But is teaching it as a course devoted to nutrition in medical school the best way to influence a general appreciation of good nutrition for our citizens?

In medical school and post doctoral training nutrition is generally taught related to illness. For example, a patient who has had a cardiac bypass needs a diet designed to achieve an ideal weight and decrease the LDL cholesterol to the data driven optimal range, likewise for diabetes. A risk factor analysis for heart disease would include cholesterol testing, perhaps coronary artery calcium scoring and [Read More]

By ROLF LOWE
Wachler & Associates, P.C.

In 2018 the Michigan Legislature introduced and passed Public Act 463 of 2018 providing a pathway for licensure as a dental therapist, with the legislation becoming effective in March of 2019. Nearly seven years later the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) and Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) are finally seeing the fruits of their labor to increase access to dental care to Michigan residents begin to blossom, with the state’s first dental therapist becoming licensed and starting to practice in the Upper Peninsula in early 2026. Michigan is one of fourteen states that currently authorizes the practice of dental [Read More]

 By NICOLETTE TABOR
Dickinson Wright

 On Jan. 29, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order with the potential to significantly impact behavioral health and substance use disorder providers.

Executive Order 14379, titled “The Great American Recovery Initiative,” outlines the Trump Administration’s efforts to coordinate the federal government’s response to substance use disorders and the addiction crisis in the United States. Importantly, the executive order acknowledges that addiction “is a chronic, treatable disease” and that the framework for addiction treatment should parallel that of other chronic diseases – signaling a continued historical shift in the US healthcare framework. While this executive order does not immediately affect substance use disorder (SUD) providers, it does provide [Read More]

Lawmakers Still Chewing On Dental Compact Bill

Michigan would join an interstate compact allowing out-of-state dentists and dental hygienists to practice in Michigan under legislation still receiving work in a House committee.

Rep. Parker Fairbairn (R-Harbor Springs)‘s  HB 4935 would enter Michigan into the Council of State Governments (CSG) Dentist and Dental Hygienist Compact. If adopted, Michigan would join Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Washington, Arkansas, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia and Maine in the agreement.

The bill moved out of the House Health Policy Committee without no votes and is now in the House Rules Committee, where it’s getting a second opinion.

Under the compact, dentists and dental hygienists would be able to streamline [Read More]

By JULIE APPLEBY
Subsidies. Love ’em or hate them, they dominated the news during the Affordable Care Act’s sign-up season, and their reduction is now hitting many enrollees in the pocketbook.

While lawmakers continue to disagree on a way forward, and the politics of affordability keeps the issue front and center, it would be understandable to think these are the only taxpayer-funded health insurance subsidies in the U.S. system.

But that would be wrong.

“The vast majority of people with health insurance get some kind of federal subsidy for it, from Medicaid to Medicare to the ACA to employer-sponsored insurance,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a health information nonprofit that [Read More]

Facing a $1.8 billion budget hole going into Fiscal Year 2027, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed last month an $88.1 billion spending plan based on roughly $800 million in tax increases, $630 million in cuts and $400 million from the rainy day fund.

The plan puts a premium on preventing cuts to Medicaid, the health program that roughly 1 in 4 Michiganders count on to cover their care. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) pushed new eligibility requirements and costs for Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients onto the states.

“We can talk about efficiencies,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing). “We can talk about tightening our belts and [Read More]

Nurses in Michigan would be guaranteed eight consecutive hours of time off after working a 12-hour shift, under legislation by Sens. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit) and Ed McBroom (R-Waucedah Twp.).

“It pains me that after decades of nurses organizing and mobilizing for safer guardrails, so little has truly changed,” said Kimberly Rackley, a fourth-generation nurse working at Borgess Health in Kalamazoo.

Rackley testified in support of SB 296 and SB 297 in front of the Senate Regulatory Affairs Committee this morning, which heard testimony on the legislation. Rackley described working as part of an open-heart surgical team, and how the team must be available 24 hours daily in order for the hospital to maintain its Level II [Read More]

By DANIEL AYYASH

Wachler & Associates, P.C.

On Dec. 31, 2025, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released a fourth temporary Rule extending certain controlled substance prescribing flexibilities through Dec. 31, 2026. The Rule maintains the DEA’s position on controlled substance prescribing via telehealth that has been in place since the beginning of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). By extending these flexibilities, healthcare providers have extra time to make preparations in the event that pre-PHE telemedicine prescribing requirements are revived, and also gives the DEA time to evaluate whether a more permanent framework for telemedicine controlled substance prescribing can be implemented.

Background

Prior to the beginning of the COVID-19 PHE and the prescribing flexibilities [Read More]