Monday Report

From Washington, DC
- Roll Call lets us know,
- “President Donald Trump alleged Sunday that “the Democrats want” a government shutdown at the end of this week, but he predicted that a lapse in appropriations probably will not take place this time.
- “I think the CR is going to get passed. We’ll see. But it could happen,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, referring to a continuing resolution that would extend current funding until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The current funding extension expires at the end of Friday.”
- Modern Healthcare adds,
- “Physicians looking to Congress for relief from falling Medicare payments may have to keep waiting.
- “House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) unveiled what’s known as a continuing resolution, or CR, on Saturday to keep the government open through the end of fiscal 2025 on Sept. 30, and Congress may vote on the measure as soon as Tuesday. The legislation does not address the 2.9% Medicare reimbursement cut for physicians that took effect Jan. 1.
- “The Johnson legislation would, however, extend telehealth and hospital-at-home authorities under Medicare and delay cuts to Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments for safety-net providers. The bill also includes six-month funding extensions for community health centers, graduate medical education and other health programs that are due to expire on March 31.”
- The Senate confirmed Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be Secretary of Labor by a 67-32 vote.
- The Associated Press reports,
- “Most of the 80,000 federal workers responsible for researching diseases, inspecting food and administering Medicare and Medicaid under the auspices of the Health and Human Services Department were emailed an offer to leave their job for as much as a $25,000 payment as part of President Donald Trump’s government cuts.
- “Workers cannot start opting in until Monday and have until 5 p.m. on Friday to submit a response for the so-called voluntary separation offer. The email was sent to staff across the department, which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and the National Institutes of Health as well as the Food and Drug Administration, both in Maryland.
- “The mass email went out to a “broad population of HHS employees,” landing in their inboxes days before agency heads are due to offer plans for shrinking their workforces. HHS is one of the government’s costliest federal agencies, with an annual budget of about $1.7 trillion that is mostly spent on health care coverage for millions of people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid.”
- Govexec offers us the opportunity to meet the 2025 inductees into the Government Hall of Fame.
From the judicial front,
- The Washington Post lets us know,
- “The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a Christian therapist’s challenge to a state law barring “conversion therapy” that attempts to change a young person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
- “Kaley Chiles, who practices in Colorado, says the state law banning such treatment is unconstitutional and has forced her to deny counseling to potential clients who share her faith, in violation of her religious beliefs.
- “More than 20 states and the District of Columbia restrict mental health counseling that attempts to change a young person’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
From the public health and medical research front,
- GoodRx informs us,
- “Women consistently spend nearly 30% more out of pocket on prescriptions than men, totaling $8.5 billion more in 2024 alone.
- “Women visit doctors more often, fill more prescriptions, and manage more chronic conditions — leading to higher total out-of-pocket costs across the board.
- “Women 18 to 44 years old face the steepest price gap, spending up to 64% more than men — all while balancing career, family planning, and caregiving.
- “Women also significantly outspend men on mental health treatments. Women spend 113% more on depression medications and 103% more on anxiety treatments.”
- Health Day points out,
- “Getting essential vitamins and minerals during pregnancy can help a woman maintain healthy blood pressure into middle age, new research suggests.
- “High levels of the minerals copper and manganese in pregnant women were associated with lower blood pressure decades later, as well as a reduced risk of high blood pressure, researchers reported.
- “Higher levels of vitamin B12 also were associated with lower blood pressure in later life, according to findings published March 6 in the journal Hypertension.”
- The American Medical Association relates “What doctors wish patients knew about prostate cancer.”
- The Washington Post points out that “Over 15 percent (15.5) of young adults ages 21 to 24 used electronic cigarettes in 2023, according to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics.”
- Per Cardiovascular Business,
- “New technology that directly visualizes inflammation in a patient’s coronary arteries could potentially transform the preventive cardiology landscape. It can evaluate a patient’s risk of a heart attack in a way that goes beyond what we learn from traditional cholesterol readings.
- “Researchers at Oxford University developed the novel imaging technology, which detects coronary inflammation using coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scans and artificial intelligence (AI) to show inflammation in the perivascular fat surrounding the vessels. It is now being commercialized by Caristo and pending U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) final review.
- “It has always been the holy grail of cardiovascular prevention to be able to pick up coronary inflammation, because if you know which artery is inflamed and which patient needs treatments to prevent heart attacks. Up until now, we had only simply biomarkers like high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), which are nonspecific. So, we have developed a technology the last few years that allows you to measure coronary inflammation by analyzing the fat that surrounds arteries,” explained by Charalambos Antoniades, MD, the British Heart Foundation Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford. He spoke with Cardiovascular Business about the technology at the American Heart Association (AHA) 2024 meeting, where he presented data on it at multiple sessions.”
- ECRI lists the top ten threats to patient safety in 2025:
- “Dismissing patient, family and caregiver concerns
- “Insufficient governance of artificial intelligence
- “Spread of medical misinformation
- “Cybersecurity breaches
- “Caring for veterans in non-military health settings
- “Substandard and falsified drugs
- “Diagnostic errors in cancers, vascular events and infections
- “Healthcare-associated infections in long-term care facilities
- “Inadequate coordination during patient discharge
- “Deteriorating working conditions in community pharmacies”
From the U.S. healthcare business front,
- Beckers Hospital Review tells us,
- “CVS is rolling out a dozen new stores focused primarily on pharmacy services, reducing retail offerings as the company responds to a prolonged decline in retail sales, The Wall Street Journal reported March 8.
- “The new stores, averaging less than 5,000 square feet, or less than half the size of a normal CVS store, will open over the next year across the U.S.”
- BioPharma Dive reports,
- “Novo Nordisk’s experimental drug CagriSema helped people who are overweight or obese and have diabetes lose about 14% of their body weight over 68 weeks, or 11 percentage points more than those given placebo, the company said Monday.
- “The Danish company aims to position CagriSema as a more potent successor to its popular obesity drug Wegovy, which recorded sales of 58 billion kroner, or about $8.4 billion, in 2024. But earlier trial results in people without diabetes also fell short of expectations, casting doubt on CagriSema’s potential.
- “Novo Nordisk shares fell nearly 10% following the announcement, continuing a monthslong stock slide fueled by concerns over the company’s competitive standing versus top rival Eli Lilly. The company has already outlined plans for a new Phase 3 trial to test whether CagriSema can generate greater weight loss at higher doses.”
- and
- “An experimental drug from Mineralys Therapeutics succeeded in a pair of trials in people with stubbornly high blood pressure, the biotechnology company said Monday.
- Mineralys has been developing the drug, dubbed lorundrostat, in people whose high blood pressure can’t be adequately treated with existing medications. The company says more than half of people with hypertension have this “uncontrolled” and “resistant” form, which in many cases is linked to high levels of a blood pressure-regulating hormone released by the kidneys.”