RFK Jr. vs. Congress

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. completed his whirlwind tour of House and Senate committees this week, ostensibly to promote President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for his department but also to answer for some of his more controversial positions, particularly on vaccines.  Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order to facilitate the use of hallucinogens to treat mental health conditions and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ended a decades-old policy requiring members of the military to get annual flu shots.  Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Victoria Knight of Bloomberg Government join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.  Also this week, in the latest installment of our “How Would You Fix It?” series, Rovner interviews doctor, author, and Harvard public health professor David Blumenthal about his ideas for making the health system work better.   Visit our website for a transcript of this episode. Plus for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too:  Julie Rovner: The Washington Post’s “KitKat, Gatorade or granola bars? What’s banned under new SNAP rules is mixed,” by Rachel Roubein.   Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Politico’s “Trump’s surgeon general pick faces mounting GOP opposition,” by Amanda Friedman and Alice Miranda Ollstein.   Alice Miranda Ollstein: The Washington Post’s “Where U.S. science has been hit hardest after Trump’s first year,” by Carolyn Y. Johnson, Lydia Sidhom and Susan Svrluga.   Victoria Knight: The New York Times’s “A $440,000 Breast Reduction: How Doctors Cashed In on a Consumer Protection Law,” by Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz.