Axios

A long-awaited confrontation between Senate health committee Chair Bill Cassidy and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. passed without major fireworks on Wednesday — but with Kennedy indicating he would let the next Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director make decisions without interference.

Why it matters: Cassidy and Kennedy have increasingly been at odds over Trump administration health policies and Kennedy's criticisms of vaccines since the Louisiana Republican cast a decisive vote to confirm Kennedy last year.

Washington's anti-hospital animus is gaining momentum with new calls to crack down on federal financing of hospitals coming from a think tank with close ties to the Trump administration.

Why it matters: It's becoming apparent on both sides of the aisle that addressing health care costs means addressing their largest driver: Hospitals.

The nation's troubled organ transplant system may be about to get some help from above.

• NASA is researching whether unmanned drones could help solve reliability issues that have cost patients life-saving organs and left donor tissue lost in transit or unusable.

The Trump administration is indefinitely delaying a Medicare pilot program to cover weight-loss drugs after health insurance companies voiced concerns about participating, federal officials said Tuesday.

Why it matters: It's a blow to the administration after President Trump last year touted deals with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to cut prices on GLP-1 drugs in exchange for access to a new pool of patients.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Health leaders at an April 16 Axios event warned that funding uncertainty and workforce shortages are colliding in the state.

Why it matters: An inability to pay providers, augment care centers, and train new staff threatens the quality of care for residents across North Carolina.

Axios' Mary Helen Moore and Caitlin Owens moderated conversations with North Carolina Healthcare Association CEO Josh Dobson, North Carolina Nurses Association CEO Tina C. Gordon and the North Carolina Office of Rural Health director Margaret Sauer. The event was sponsored by UnitedHealth Group.

Driving the news: The North Carolina General Assembly convenes Tuesday to pass an overdue state budget that will determine Medicaid funding.

By the numbers: North Carolina is projected to face $40 billion in budget cuts over the next 10 years.

• 3.1 million North Carolinians rely on Medicaid coverage.

The staffing bottleneck is real, with 80,000 qualified nursing applicants turned away in 2024 due to limited school capacity, according to Gordon.

What they're saying: "There's a false narrative … that all hospitals and all providers are flush with cash and there's all this money. That's just not the case," Dobson said.

• "We have a lot of burnout in the workplace for all clinicians. … We have a lot of retirements from an aging workforce, and we have a significant increase in need," Gordon said.

Threat level: If the current conditions aren't addressed, "hospitals close, patients don't have places to go for care," Gordon said.

The bottom line: Providers "want to be able to take care of their patients," Sauer said. "We just want to do the best thing, and sometimes we can't if we don't have the money."

Content from the sponsor's segment:

In a sponsored View From the Top conversation, Danielle Gray, UnitedHealth Group executive vice president of corporate and external affairs, and Meg Zomorodi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor and senior associate provost for academic excellence, spoke to Axios publisher Nicholas Johnston.

• The organization announced a $3 million grant to UNC's Robert A. Ingram Institute for Healthcare Access.
• "Our community investment strategy is part and parcel of our mission … to help people live healthier lives and to help make the health system work better for everyone," Gray said.
• "Ingram's mission really centers around explore, employ and empower," Zomorodi said. "We can't be gap-filling. We need to actually be team building."

Steak n Shake — the chain that proudly cooks its french fries in "100% beef tallow" — has just named a chief "Make America Healthy Again" officer.

Why it matters: It's the latest sign of how Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s movement is influencing major food brands.

Doula care has gone from a niche birth option to a Medicaid-covered benefit in more than half of U.S. states.

Why it matters: Research has linked doula support to lower cesarean rates and fewer preterm births.

• And a new review of clinical trials published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open found doula support was most consistently associated with lower maternal anxiety, higher breastfeeding initiation and better postpartum follow-up care.

Amazon's One Medical is rolling out a national GLP-1 program as demand for weight-loss drugs surges, the company announced Tuesday.

Why it matters: The boom in drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is reshaping obesity care — but also exposing gaps in how patients are treated.

The FBI's No. 2 official told hospital executives Tuesday they need to step up information-sharing on cyberthreats as the agency works to disrupt attacks earlier.

Why it matters: Health care was the top target for ransomware and other cyberthreats last year, according to FBI statistics. Data breaches and attacks on hospitals shut down operations, delay time-sensitive treatment and risk harm to patients, and also cost health systems millions per incident.

Driving the news: FBI deputy director Andrew Bailey, a former Missouri attorney general, framed the threat through a law enforcement lens, emphasizing the disruption of criminal networks, "not just arrests and indictments."

• "We have to go on offense and disrupt the ecosystem that allows perpetrators to exist," Bailey told the American Hospital Association meeting in Washington, D.C.
• Bailey emphasized the need for close coordination with hospitals, including sharing threat intelligence to identify attacks earlier.

Between the lines: He pointed specifically to the threat of attacks by Russian-speaking "ransomware as a service" groups that operate with safe harbor from the Russian government.

• "We're at a point where they're attacking a hospital system and it's just normal, everyday routine transactions for these groups," he said. "For the hospital on the receiving end ... it's anything but."
• Major cyberattacks in 2025 hit Yale New Haven Health System and kidney care giant DaVita, among other providers.