Health orgs tweak messaging as federal policy priorities shift

• "There's a lot more at stake than there was before," said Hannah Mooney Mack, a strategic communications consultant. "There's always a handful of things that are being considered in the health space. Now, there's a complete overhaul [being considered], which is requiring people to speak up."
• Companies push back on the notion that they're making significant communication shifts and deliberately using language aligned with the Trump administration.

The big picture: Kennedy's philosophy, built around skepticism of corporations and mainstream science and promoting chronic disease prevention, has its own vernacular. Phrases like "radical transparency" appear regularly in government statements.

• Some recent industry messaging has contrasted with language from the Biden administration's rhetoric centered on accessibility, affordability and social determinants of health.
• Eli Lilly earlier this month released an ad that calls on customers to be "a healthy skeptic" of compounded weight-loss drugs.
• During a February event unveiling new U.S. drug manufacturing sites, Lilly CEO David Ricks referenced company efforts to make it easier for people with obesity and diabetes to get "access to quality care, personalized information, lifestyle choice, diet, exercise and stress management," in addition to drugs.
• AHIP, the leading trade organization for health insurers, wrote in a news release last month that privately run Medicare plans promote "greater health and wellness" for seniors.

Health companies have simultaneously moved away from terms like "diversity" and "equity" as the Trump administration orders the end of federal DEI programs.

• Pfizer changed its diversity, equity and inclusion webpage to emphasize that its approach to those efforts is "merit-based," Stat reported. Google Health has renamed a job title from global head of health equity to global head of health optimization, also per Stat.
• Several health insurers removed or dampened DEI language in their 2024 annual reports filed early this year, according to Modern Healthcare.

Zoom out: Many companies promoted wellness and acknowledged public anger with the health system following the pandemic before Trump took office for his second term.

• Pfizer news releases included mentions of the company's work on disease prevention and "advancing wellness" during the Biden administration. And insurers have promoted benefits aimed at advancing whole-person health for years.
• But Kennedy's messaging especially resonated with women and mothers and helped President Trump gain support with those groups, Axios' Sara Fisher reported in November.
• For health care interests, the moment may require "being able to read the proverbial room and looking around and saying, 'This is what voters wanted. We need to have this conversation because this is what they wanted,'" Mooney Mack said.

What they're saying: "Medicine is just one aspect of health care, and throughout our nearly 150-year history as a company, we've supported the need for a healthy lifestyle alongside the use of medicine," a Lilly spokesperson said in an email to Axios.

• "The messages and words used in our latest campaign 'Healthy Skepticism' have been chosen in response to our commitment to patient safety."
• AHIP also pushed back on the idea that highlighting wellness as a feature of Medicare Advantage is a new position.
• "Medicare Advantage's long-standing emphasis on preventive care and chronic disease management is a defining feature of the program and one reason why MA consistently provides better health outcomes for seniors than fee-for-service Medicare," spokesperson Chris Bond said in an email.

Reality check: Leaning too hard into the Trump administration rhetoric too quickly may not ease Trump world's suspicions about some companies' motives.

• "I almost think it's a risk because people will just roll their eyes at the companies who did 180s," one conservative health care policy expert not in the administration told Axios.

The bottom line: Many health care organizations do support Kennedy's broad goals to fix the underlying causes of increasing rates of chronic disease across different populations, said Jeffrey Davis, director at health care consulting firm McDermott+.

• "In any administration, you have to make the case that your priorities, in some way, shape, or form, align with theirs," Davis said.
• "The best way to make that case is to speak their same language."