QUID PRO QUO

Republicans dangle pay raise to physicians — if they stay quiet on Medicaid cuts

ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Lawmakers have begun lobbying the lobbyists: asking health care interests to keep quiet — or speak up — about potential cuts to Medicaid, which will put 10.9 million people at risk of losing health insurance. 

Republicans have urged doctor groups to hold back on criticisms of the cuts, pointing out the inclusion of an enticing carrot for doctors groups in President Trump's tax bill: Pay increases for physicians from Medicare. Increasing the amount that Medicare pays doctors — especially over the long-term, tied to inflation — has been a top priority for physicians groups in Washington for years. Conversely, Democrats are asking lobbyists to put Republicans on blast for how these cuts would affect providers and patients, but the party lacks leverage as Republicans can pass the measure without Democratic lawmakers. STAT’s Daniel Payne has the scoop. 

As Congress bats around ideas for slashing Medicaid spending, more than half of Americans are fretting that the reductions would impair their family’s ability to obtain and afford health care, according to a new poll from KFF Health Tracking Poll. The fear extends to Republican voters, too, including 76% of MAGA supporters and other Republican Medicaid enrollees.

POLICY

NIH, FDA diverge on AI strategy

It looks like the NIH is thinking about AI differently than the FDA, who earlier this week released a “rushed” AI tool across the agency. At the Coalition for Health AI summit at Stanford University yesterday, NIH principal deputy director Matthew Memoli announced a request for public input on the agency’s AI strategy. The NIH, he said, sees AI as being an integral part of scientific research going forward — especially as datasets for research swell in size. The request seeks suggestions on how the NIH can use AI to make its functions more useful and how it can foster trust and transparency in using and evaluating AI tools for applications ranging from clinical AI tools to peer review.

The agency plans to name a new chief AI officer as well — STAT noticed yesterday that the NIH’s inaugural chief AI officer, Gil Alterovitz, has already stepped down and returned to the Veterans Health Agency, where he is also chief AI officer, according to his LinkedIn. It’s a bit surprising that the NIH made such an announcement at an event for the health AI nonprofit, as four House Republicans last year sent letters to federal officials criticizing the government’s relationship to CHAI, resulting in Biden officials stepping down from the CHAI board. – Brittany Trang

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EUGENICS

Move over, Francis Galton

Americans’ self-reported race is a poor proxy for their genetic ancestry, according to a large government study published Thursday that could have major implications for how health disparities are researched.

Writing in the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers analyzed the genomes of more than 200,000 participants in the All of Us cohort, which was established by the National Institutes of Health to create a dataset that accurately represented the makeup of the United States. The study arrives amid a heated debate over the role racial categories play in research as the Trump administration has targeted grants it deems related to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” as being “unscientific.” 

“The clear message here is that these are two distinct constructs, they mean different things, and they should not be used interchangeably,” said Luisa Borrell, a social epidemiologist at the CUNY School of Public Health. STAT’s Anil Oza dives deep into the study and the fraught history between geneticists and the idea of race.