Pennsylvania records third measles-related death amid outbreak
A 40-year-old woman died in Pennsylvania from measles-related illness, the third measles-related death in the state in recent weeks. Greg Furlong, the coroner for Jefferson County, said in a Facebook statement that she died Saturday, calling it a heartbreaking loss and an unfortunate reminder that measles can be serious and potentially life-threatening. Pennsylvania is in a large outbreak, with 676 measles cases recorded as of Friday; the two previous deaths in the state were in babies. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has disputed the role measles played in the infant deaths, and the CDC has not yet registered either as measles related. Late Sunday, CDC Director Erica Schwartz appeared to rebuke Pennsylvania's handling of the outbreak, saying the CDC had not been notified of the latest death and suggesting the state has yet to accept repeated offers of on-the-ground measles outbreak support.
The newsletter also highlights a new modeling study in the Lancet suggesting the Trump administration may be undercutting its own plan to lower Medicare drug costs through most-favored-nation pricing. Secretive deals with more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies could reduce the program's benefit by as much as 80%, according to the modeling. The policy would require companies to pay additional rebates when Medicare prices for targeted drugs exceed costs in comparable high-income countries, which could give manufacturers a strong incentive to hike prices outside the U.S. or delay launching new products. Lead author Thomas Hwang of Brigham and Women's Hospital told Ed Silverman that because the deals aren't public, it is hard for policymakers and the public to judge whether most-favored-nation pricing is delivering what was promised.
Separately, Daniel Payne reports that a $50 billion rural health care fund added by Republicans to a bill cutting $1 trillion from Medicare initially seemed promising to hospital leaders, who thought it would help rural hospitals fill troublesome gaps. But the reality of what the fund has become has left those leaders disillusioned. The rural health transformation funds were meant to finance programs that would be su—the excerpt ends mid-sentence, so further details are not available.