| | | | |  | | By Chelsea Cirruzzo and Ben Leonard | | Presented by |  | | | With Carmen Paun
| | |  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hopes to bring a vote to protect IVF access to the floor today. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | THE STATE OF IVF — A lot of people — from senators to doctors to faith leaders — are voting on in vitro fertilization policies this week. Amid a patchwork of state laws on when a fetus is considered human and a consequential Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos should be regarded as people, policymakers are scrambling to understand how to protect the popular procedure. Senate Democrats hope to bring a vote to the floor today that would establish a nationwide right to IVF, but Senate Republicans are expected to uniformly oppose it. “Protecting IVF should be the definition of an easy vote for senators on both sides of the aisle,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Wednesday. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called the vote “an exercise in futility.” “We may have a couple of our members who end up voting for it. It’s not going to move forward,” he said. A Republican response bill, led by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.), that would have blocked Medicaid funding from states that ban IVF, failed on the floor Wednesday. The Senate IVF vote also comes after a failed attempt by Senate Democrats to pass legislation protecting access to birth control last week. Two votes, two policies: On Wednesday, the nation’s largest professional physician association and the nation’s largest and most politically powerful Protestant denomination each voted on their own IVF policies. At the American Medical Association’s annual meeting in Chicago, the AMA delegates voted to oppose any legislation or ballot measures that could criminalize IVF. The policy aligns with the group’s past stances on similar issues, such as abortion, which advocate against political interference in health care decisions. “Make no mistake: They are coming for us,” Albert Hsu, an OB-GYN from Missouri who specializes in infertility medicine, told an AMA committee considering the new policy. But in Indianapolis, at the Southern Baptists Convention, nearly 11,000 “messengers” to the group’s annual meeting voted to oppose in vitro fertilization, POLITICO’s Megan Messerly reported. Evangelicals, anti-abortion advocates and other social conservatives see restricting IVF as the “pro-life” movement’s next frontier in the post-Roe era as they push for politics to restrict or ban IVF at the state and federal levels. The vote could encourage other evangelical denominations and churches to follow suit in declaring, or at least teaching about, their ethical concerns with IVF as it’s commonly practiced in the U.S. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE. YEAH! Usher was on Capitol Hill yesterday to talk about insulin and diabetes screening. Has anyone ever looked this stylish on the Senate subway? Send your tips, scoops and feedback to ccirruzzo@politico.com and bleonard@politico.com and follow along @ChelseaCirruzzo and @_BenLeonard_.
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Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart is the sponsor of a House bill that includes banning groups that receive U.S. global health funding from promoting abortion rights or performing abortions. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | HOUSE APPROPRIATORS CUT WHO FUNDING — The House Appropriations Committee approved a 2025 funding bill for the State Department and foreign aid programs that cut all funding to the WHO and the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, Carmen reports. The bill also reintroduced a policy banning groups that receive U.S. global health funding from promoting abortion rights or performing abortions, even if they use other resources for those activities. Approved in a 31-26 vote, the GOP-led legislation would exact about an 11 percent cut to funding the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and foreign aid programs compared with the level enacted in fiscal 2024. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), the funding bill’s sponsor and chair of the House Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee, chastised the WHO. “For years, the WHO has ignored Hamas turning hospitals into dens of terror, using patients as human shields, and then it has the audacity to repeat the Hamas lies that Israel is targeting hospitals. That’s an outright lie,” he said, referring to the WHO’s criticism of Israel bombing hospitals in Gaza due to ongoing conflict. He also said the WHO has failed to hold China accountable for the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, among other faults. The WHO didn't respond to a request for comment. Democrat appropriators failed to get an amendment passed to rescind the cut. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat appropriator, defended the WHO, calling some of Diaz-Balart’s statements misinformation. She said the WHO is working to provide medical supplies in Gaza, look out for diseases emerging in Sudan and South Sudan and fight cholera and mpox worldwide. Why it matters: While the cuts aren’t expected to make it into law due to opposition from Democrats, it signals trouble for the WHO, UNFPA and other U.N. organizations if Republicans win a stronger majority in Congress or the White House in November. What’s next: House Republican leaders hope to pass the bill on the House floor by the end of the month, POLITICO’s Caitlin Emma reports.
| | | | A message from HCA Healthcare:   | | | E&C DOESN’T MARK UP TELEHEALTH — Legislation to extend telehealth access didn’t make it into a House Energy and Commerce markup Wednesday, but the panel did advance several bills, including one that would create a billing code for virtual mental health services, Ben reports. Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said that lawmakers would continue to work on telehealth legislation and a pediatric rare disease voucher program. The telehealth legislation hasn’t been publicly scored by the Congressional Budget Office, and lawmakers have raised questions about cost. Ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said the legislation is just “not ready.” Background: E&C’s Health Subcommittee unanimously advanced legislation last month to extend pandemic-era telehealth rules in Medicare for two years, and that bill had been expected to be in Wednesday’s markup of health legislation. Rodgers said lawmakers are still working on a “fully paid for” telehealth package, with additions related to diabetes and cardiac care, and she’s hopeful the committee will advance the package before the August recess. Voucher program: Rodgers also said legislation to reauthorize the priority review voucher program for rare pediatric diseases remains a top priority, and she’s aiming for “broad, bipartisan support.” The program intends to incentivize the development of treatments for rare pediatric diseases by speeding up the regulatory process. Lawmakers were optimistic that a bipartisan deal could be reached after tensions simmered in a subcommittee hearing last month and legislation amended to reauthorize the program advanced on a 16-11 party-line vote. The program expires at the end of September. Lawmakers also advanced an amendment to a bill to streamline Medicaid access for children across state lines that would ban so-called spread-pricing in the federal health program.
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF HEALTHCARE POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries, like healthcare, equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced and better sourced than any other. Our healthcare reporting team—including Alice Miranda Ollstein, Megan Messerly and Robert King—is embedded with the market-moving legislative committees and agencies in Washington and across states, delivering unparalleled coverage of health policy and the healthcare industry. We bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY. | | | | | | | | | HOSPITAL ATTACK ‘HONEST MISTAKE’ — Cybercriminals gained access to a hospital system’s network after an employee downloaded a malicious file, Ascension said Wednesday. The attack in May on Ascension, a Catholic nonprofit that operates more than 140 hospitals, cut access to patients’ electronic health records and forced some hospitals to divert ambulances. On Wednesday, an Ascension spokesperson said an investigation —the company hired cybersecurity experts to help — found that attackers stole files from seven servers in Ascension’s network. Those files are believed to contain protected health information. There’s no evidence that data was taken from the organization’s electronic health records, the spokesperson said. The investigation is ongoing. “Right now, we don’t know precisely what data was potentially affected and for which patients. In order to reach those conclusions, we need to conduct a full review of the files that may have been impacted and carefully analyze them.” According to the spokesperson, hackers accessed the system after someone working at an Ascension facility accidentally downloaded a bad file. “We have no reason to believe this was anything but an honest mistake,” the spokesperson said. The attack comes on the heels of a February one against Change Healthcare, a large medical bill clearinghouse. The CEO of UnitedHealth Group, which owns Change, estimated to Congress that a third of Americans were impacted.
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