Free Republic

***SNIP*** "Your letter seeks federal dollars for California from hardworking American taxpayers but fails to admit that your State and local policies have played a major role in the current crisis," Sec. Carson wrote in a letter responding to the leaders. ***SNIP*** The letter also blames California's sanctuary policies, saying "illegal and inadmissible aliens are increasing housing demand and draining resources," and says the Trump administration is addressing the problem by improving border security to reduce drug use. "The Trump administration is doing its part," Carson writes in the final part of the letter. "California needs to address the obvious...

WASHINGTON -- The federal government will stop funding intramural research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) involving fetal tissue derived from elective abortions, the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday. "Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump's administration," the department said in a statement. "Intramural research that requires new acquisition of fetal tissue from elective abortions will not be conducted." The department said current NIH-funded research at academic centers with abortion-derived fetal tissue can continue, however, and new projects can still be funded,...

The Trump administration has formally proposed to revise Obama-era civil rights for transgender people in the nation’s health care system, eliminating “gender identity” as a factor in health care and leaning government policy toward recognizing only characteristics of sex at birth. The Department of Health and Human Services published its proposed regulation Friday, which eliminates a 2016 regulation inserted by the Obama administration that redefined discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include gender identity.

What if I told you that our government is unintentionally (completing a criminal) conspiracy to deliver Central American teens from cartels and smugglers to other illegal aliens, resettling them on our dime, and sending them to our schools, all the while enriching some of the most evil organizations and nourishing the growth of MS-13 and drug traffickers? Yesterday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told the Senate Appropriations Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee that the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for and resettles unaccompanied alien children (UACs), will run out of cash before the end of the year. That is because, as (Congressional...

Top congressional Democrats requested Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services halt Medicaid work requirements, citing widespread loss of coverage in Arkansas. The letter, signed by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey rebukes the administration for "disregard of Congressional intent" and a failure to track the impact of waiver policies. Using Medicaid 1115 waivers, states can receive federal funds for Medicaid expansion despite modifying the policy outlined in the Affordable Care Act. The waivers, however, must be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services. Arkansas was the first state to...

A former executive for Pfizer, recently tasked with joining HHS to help reduce the prices of Big Pharma’s monopoly prescription medications, was found bludgeoned to death outside his Washington D.C. apartment. Local police ruled the death of Daniel Best a suicide, raising immediate questions about how an individual can bludgeon himself to death with multiple blows. “The city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Thursday said Best died from “multiple blunt force injuries” and it ruled his death a suicide. It would not release further information,” reports Cleveland.com. The news website also reports: In announcing his death, HHS Secretary...

New York Times cites government memo Gender would be defined at birth as only male or female The Trump administration is attempting to strip transgender people of official recognition by creating a narrow definition of gender as being only male or female and unchangeable once determined at birth, the New York Times reported. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has undertaken an effort across several departments to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex, the Times said, citing a government memo. That definition...

HHS’s proposal would restore the federal definition of gender so that it refers to either a male or a female — no exceptions — and based solely on the individual’s genital makeup. “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the memo reportedly reads. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

The Trump administration has terminated a contract with a fetal tissue firm after receiving blowback from anti-abortion groups and Republican lawmakers. The Department of Health and Human Services terminated the $16,000 contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources because it was not "sufficiently assured" that the contract included appropriate protections and followed requirements for fetal tissue research, the agency said in a statement Monday evening. HHS is also conducting an audit of all acquisitions involving human fetal tissue to "ensure conformity with procurement and human fetal tissue research laws and regulations," the statement says.

Contrary to reports of mass confusion at the Southwest Border, where the Department of Health and Human Services is under a court order to reunite children with the parents who brought them here illegally, "there is no confusion whatsoever," HHS Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News Thursday morning. Azar said his department is working against a court-imposed deadline to reunite the 11,800 children with the people who are claiming to be their parents. The process includes DNA testing. "Every child is accounted for," Azar said. "We know every child, where they are. We know the record -- the last time...

Trump’s budget proposal set out several reforms for lowering drug prices, including giving low-income seniors free generic drugs. Azar said the agency wants to solve problems such as the high list prices set by drug makers and “seniors" and government programs overpaying for drugs due to the lack of the latest negotiating tools; rising out-of-pocket costs for consumers; and foreign governments free-riding off American investment in innovation.” Azar also touched on the need for greater transparency of prices of healthcare procedures..........“I believe you ought to have the right to know what a procedure is going to cost, and what it’s...

Immigrants entering the United States illegally through the southern border are quietly being relocated to different parts of the country on commercial flights, high-ranking Homeland Security officials told Judicial Watch this week. In the last few days alone, groups of illegal aliens boarded planes at airports in Texas and Arizona accompanied by a taxpayer-funded government escort in civilian clothes to avoid drawing attention. The first flight originated at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas and was bound for Minneapolis. The second left from Tucson International Airport and arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah, federal sources said. In both locations the...

WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Trump administration is announcing the formation of the new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The press release states the division will be under the Office for Civil Rights, adding it's purpose is to "restore federal enforcement of our nation's laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom." It continues, "The creation of the new division will provide HHS with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom, the first...

Donald Trump once described himself as “pro-choice in every respect.” On Thursday, his administration announced a new office to protect doctors and nurses who object to providing abortion services and other medical care on moral and religious grounds. Acting HHS Secretary Eric Hargan announced the new “Conscience and Religious Freedom” office, housed in the agency’s Civil Rights division, saying Trump had promised his administration “would vigorously uphold the rights of conscience and religious freedom. That promise is being kept today.” It’s a major victory for the pro-life movement, especially given Trump’s past comments about his support for abortion. Trump is...

Multiple agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have reportedly been told by the Trump administration that they cannot use certain phrases in official documents. Officials from two HHS agencies, who asked that their names and agencies remain anonymous, told The Washington Post that they had been given a list of "forbidden" words similar to the one given to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). A second HHS agency was told not to use the phrases “entitlement,” “diversity” and “vulnerable," in documents. It was also told to use "ObamaCare" as opposed to the "Affordable Care Act" and...

The Department of Health and Human Services has published a draft of a new strategic plan that states in its introduction that life begins at conception. The personhood of the unborn child is central to the abortion debate — as even the justice who wrote the landmark Roe v. Wade opinion has acknowledged — because, if established in law, it would nullify a “right” to abortion. The largely overlooked HHS strategic plan for 2018-22 states the agency “accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life,...

Make no mistake: Bobby Jindal is far and away the best choice to replace Tom Price as secretary of Health and Human Services. Dan McLaughlin at NRO and Steve Berman at The Resurgent both made the case earlier this week for why President Trump would be wise to pick Jindal, whose health-care policy chops and general seriousness about good governance are undisputed. Berman notes that, among all the other candidates floated recently by Axios and Politico, “Jindal is the best qualified person to run HHS, to craft health care policy, to shepherd legislation through Congress, and to speak intelligently on...

Just over the wire on Fox Business. Will post more when it hits the news.

President Trump said he’s “not happy” with Tom Price, the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, over his use of costly private charter flights and wouldn’t rule out firing him. Asked by reporters during an impromptu news conference Wednesday on the South Lawn whether he would fire Price, Trump replied, “We’ll see.” “I was looking into it and I will look into it. I will tell you personally, I’m not happy about it,” Trump said as he prepared to leave the White House to tout his tax reform plan in Indiana. “I am not happy about it....

HHS seeks applications for new health IT committee Would-be members of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee have just a few days to get their applications in to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, as the Aug. 4 deadline approaches HHS is asking for applications for two of the three members it will appoint to the committee, established by the 21st Century Cures Act to recommend policies, standards and other digital health guidance to the ONC. The 21st Century Cures Act stipulates that of the three HHS appointees, one represents HHS and one is a public...