Health Care Week in Review | CMS Releases Medicaid Provider Tax Proposed Rule; House Energy and Commerce, Senate HELP Committees Advance Health Care Price Transparency Legislation

Below is Alston & Bird’s Health Care Week in Review, which provides a synopsis of the latest news in health care regulations, notices, and guidance; federal legislation and congressional committee action; reports, studies, and analyses; and other health policy news. 

Regulations, Notices & Guidance

• On July 20, 2026, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a notice entitled, Request for Information: Expedited Investigational New Drug Pilot Program; Extension of the Comment Period. FDA is providing notice of an extension of the comment period for the request for information (RFI) that appeared in the Federal Register of June 24, 2026, entitled, Expedited Investigational New Drug Pilot Program. The RFI provided notice of FDA’s intent to open a public docket to solicit input and comments on a proposal to establish a pilot program, the Expedited Investigational New Drug (IND) pilot program, to shorten the time it takes from drug identification to first-in-human (FIH) study, while protecting clinical trial participants.
• On July 20, 2026, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) released a notice entitled, Recharter for the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines. In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is hereby giving notice that the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) has been rechartered. The effective date of the renewed charter is July 21, 2026.

• On July 21, 2026, CMS released a proposed rule entitled, Medicaid Program: Indirect Hold Harmless Threshold of Health Care-Related Taxes. This proposed rule would implement Section 71115 of H.R. 1, which freezes provider tax financing at the July 4, 2025 levels and phases down many expansion state provider taxes over time. Comments must be submitted by September 21, 2026.

• On July 21, 2026, CMS released a notice entitled, Notice of Public Data Asset Release Under the Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act. In accordance with Title II of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, known as the OPEN Government Data Act, CMS announces the forthcoming release of public data assets in open, machine-readable formats under an open license. This data is intended to support public engagement in identifying and preventing fraud, waste, and abuse, and to promote transparency and accountability. CMS has taken steps to ensure that the release of this data appropriately furthers transparency objectives consistent with the protection of sensitive information.
• On July 22, 2026, HHS released a final rule entitled, Rescinding Guidelines for Eliminating Discrimination and Denial of Services on the Basis of Race, Color, National Origin, Sex, and Handicap in Vocational Education Programs. HHS is announcing the rescission of the Guidelines for Eliminating Discrimination and Denial of Services on the Basis of Race, Color, National Origin, Sex, and Handicap in Vocational Education Programs (Guidelines). The guidelines were developed and issued by HHS’s predecessor, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), in 1979 in response to litigation concerning HEW’s enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the existing federal vocational education program structure. Following the establishment of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in 1980, administration of federal vocational education programs, and the associated civil rights compliance framework for those programs detailed in the guidelines, transferred to ED. HHS does not administer the vocational education program structure contemplated by the guidelines and does not use the guidelines as an ongoing compliance mechanism. HHS notes that the continued presence of the guidelines in the Code of Federal Regulations creates a risk of confusion regarding HHS’s current enforceable nondiscrimination obligations. Rescinding the guidelines and removing the associated cross-references promotes regulatory clarity without altering any HHS funding recipient’s substantive obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, or section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
• On July 22, 2026, FDA released a final rule entitled, Revocation of the Color Additive Listing for Use of Orange B on Casings or Surfaces of Frankfurters and Sausages. FDA is issuing the final rule to repeal the color additive regulation that allows for the use of Orange B for coloring the casings or surfaces of frankfurters and sausages. FDA has determined that the authorized use of Orange B has been abandoned, and has concluded that this color additive regulation is outdated and unnecessary. Therefore, FDA is revoking the authorized use in food of Orange B in the color additive regulations.
• On July 22, 2026, FDA released a proposed rule entitled, Proposal to Revoke the Color Additive Listing for Use of Citrus Red No. 2 on the Skins of Mature Oranges. FDA is proposing to issue a rule that would repeal the color additive regulation that allows for the use of Citrus Red No. 2 for coloring the skins of mature oranges. Based on certification data, it appears that Citrus Red No. 2 is no longer used for coloring the skins of oranges and has not been certified for use as a color additive in food marketed in the United States since 2020. Because the authorized use of Citrus Red No. 2 appears to have been abandoned, FDA has tentatively concluded that this color additive regulation is outdated and unnecessary.
• On July 22, 2026, FDA released a notice entitled, Advisory Committee; Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee; Termination and Reestablishment. FDA is announcing the termination and reestablishment of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs. The Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee was terminated on June 4, 2026, because its charter was not renewed on or before that expiration date. FDA has determined that it is in the public interest to reestablish the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee for two years from the date it is reestablished.
• On July 22, 2026, FDA released a notice entitled, FDA’s Strategy Document on Facilitating Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls Readiness for Products With Accelerated Clinical Development. FDA is announcing the publication of FDA’s Strategy Document on Facilitating Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls Readiness for Products With Accelerated Clinical Development, which outlines actions FDA has taken and FDA’s plans for fiscal years 2026-2027 to facilitate chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) readiness for products with accelerated clinical development timelines. As part of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) Reauthorization Performance Goals and Procedures Fiscal Years 2023-2027 (PDUFA VII), FDA committed to advance its capability to facilitate CMC development for sponsors of drugs and biologics regulated by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)  intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent a serious disease or condition where there is an unmet medical need. The actions described in the notice are based on lessons learned from FDA’s experience with submissions for products on accelerated clinical development timelines as well as other public input.
• On July 23, 2026, HHS released a final rule entitled, Rescinding Portions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Title VI Regulations to Align with the Statutory Text and Conform to Executive Order 14281. HHS is amending its regulations implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to remove provisions that impose or exemplify liability based on disparate impact. HHS notes that these amendments align HHS’s regulations with the best reading of Title VI’s statutory text, avoid constitutional concerns, reduce compliance costs and uncertainty for recipients, and serve the public interest. In addition, these revisions conform to Executive Order 14281.
• On July 23, 2026, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a notice entitled, Government Owned Invention Available for License: Nucleophosmin 1 (NPM1) Mutation-Specific T Cell Receptors for Targeted Treatment of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). The National Cancer Institute (NCI) seeks research co-development partners or licensees for NPM1 Mutation Specific T Cell Receptors for Targeted Treatment of AML, a rare form of blood cancer affecting myeloid stem and progenitor cells.
• On July 23, 2026, NIH released a notice entitled, Government Owned Invention Available for License: Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor Peptides and Their Use for Treating Retinal Degeneration. The National Eye Institute (NEI) seeks research co-development partners and/or licensees for the development of an AAV2-based delivery system or an eyedrop formulation to deliver a Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor (PEDF) peptide as a gene-agnostic approach to treating inherited retinal diseases.
• On July 23, 2026, NIH released a notice entitled, Government-Owned Inventions; Availability for Licensing. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is giving notice of the invention that may be described as a Replication-Competent VSV-BDBV Vaccine for Rapid Prevention and Post-Exposure Protection Against Bundibugyo Virus. This invention is owned by an agency of the U.S. government and is available for licensing to achieve expeditious commercialization of results of federally funded research and development. Foreign patent applications are filed on selected inventions to extend market coverage for companies and may also be available for licensing.
• On July 24, 2026, CMS released a notice entitled, Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Quarterly Listing of Program Issuances—April Through June 2026. This quarterly notice lists CMS manual instructions, substantive and interpretive regulations, and other Federal Register notices that were published in the applicable three-month period relating to the Medicare and Medicaid programs and other programs administered by CMS.
• On July 24, 2026, CMS released a notice entitled, Medicare Program; Approved Renewal of Deeming Authority of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for Medicare Advantage Health Maintenance Organizations and Preferred Provider Organizations. This notice announces CMS’s decision to approve the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s renewal application for Medicare Advantage “deeming authority” of Health Maintenance Organizations and Preferred Provider Organizations for a term of six years.
• On July 24, 2026, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) released a notice entitled, Privacy Act of 1974; Matching Program. In accordance with subsection (e)(12) of the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, ACF is providing notice of a re-established matching program between the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and State Public Assistance Agencies (SPAAs) participating in the Public Assistance Reporting Information System (PARIS) Program. The matching program provides the SPAAs with VA’s compensation and pension data on a periodic basis to use in determining public assistance applicants’ and recipients’ eligibility for certain public assistance benefits. ACF Tech facilitates the matching program, and the Department of Treasury, Bureau of Fiscal Services, Do Not Pay (DNP) conducts the matches of SPAA and VA data and provides associated support.

Event Notices

Please note that two asterisks (**) preceding the item indicate a new event. 

• July 23-24, 2026: FDA announced a meeting of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• July 29, 2026: FDA announced a meeting of the Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• July 30, 2026: FDA announced a meeting of the Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• July 31, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• August 2-4, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the Board of Scientific Counselors, National Institute Environmental Health Sciences. This is a virtual meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• **August 3, 2026: HHS announced a meeting of the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• August 5, 2026: FDA announced a meeting entitled, Medical Device User Fee Amendments. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• August 6, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• **August 10, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. This is a hybrid meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• **August 24, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the Advisory Council on Parkinson's Research, Care, and Services (ACPRCS). This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• August 24, 2026: CMS announced a meeting of the Advisory Panel on Hospital Outpatient Payment. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• August 25, 2026: FDA announced a meeting entitled, Patient-Focused Drug Development for Nonhealing Chronic Wounds. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• August 26, 2026: CDC announced a meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH). This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• August 31, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. This is a virtual meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• September 2, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the NCI. This is a virtual meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• September 9-10, 2026: HHS announced a meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (PACCARB). This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• September 10-11, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the Fogarty International Center Advisory Board. This is a hybrid meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• September 11, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).
• September 14, 2026: FDA announced a meeting on the potential future therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs. This is a hybrid hearing open to the public.
• September 14-15, 2026: HHS announced a meeting of the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC). This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• September 15-16, 2026: CMS announced a meeting of the Medicare Advisory Panel on Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Tests (CDLTs). This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• September 15-16, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Advisory Council on Aging. This is a hybrid meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• September 16, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. This is an in-person meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• September 24, 2026: The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) announced a meeting of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• September 28-29, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research. This is a hybrid meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• October 8, 2026: CDC announced a meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH). This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• October 14, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council. This is an in-person meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• October 16, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the NIH Clinical Center Research Hospital Board. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• October 20, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• October 28, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). This is a virtual meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• **October 28, 2026: CDC announced a meeting of the Subcommittee on Procedures Reviews (SPR) of the ABRWH. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• November 5, 2026: ONC announced a meeting of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.
• December 1, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of NCI. This is an in-person meeting with some sessions open to the public.
• December 7-8, 2026: NIH announced a meeting of NICHD. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• December 8-9, 2026: HHS announced a meeting of PTAC. This is a hybrid meeting open to the public.
• January 16, 2027: HHS announced a meeting of PACCARB. This is a virtual meeting open to the public.

Reports, Studies & Analyses

• On July 21, 2026, the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report entitled, States Have Missed Some Opportunities to Improve Medicaid Managed Care Organizations’ Provider Fraud Referrals. OIG noted that state Medicaid agencies play a key role in protecting taxpayer dollars by overseeing Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) and ensuring that MCOs identify potential fraud and refer it to states and Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs). This report examines how states utilize contract requirements and other practices to improve the volume and quality of MCOs’ provider fraud referrals. In the report, OIG found that state contracts generally required MCOs to refer provider fraud to the state, but while some states require MCOs to refer “any potential fraud”, other state contracts only required reporting of “credible allegations of fraud.” Additionally, OIG reported that the timeframe of referrals varied from one day to 270, with some states not setting any timeframe. OIG recommends that CMS help states improve MCO provider fraud referral practices by ensuring that all MCOs are contractually required to refer potential fraud promptly; specifying actions states can take to address MCO fraud referral noncompliance; expanding feedback provided to MCOs about referrals; and assessing the feasibility of federal program-wide actions that states have identified as being potentially beneficial for improving MCOs’ provider fraud referrals and implementing those that CMS determines are most promising. CMS has concurred with the first two recommendations and has indicated that it has undertaken actions to implement the latter two recommendations.
• On July 23, 2026, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report entitled, Federal Subsidies for Health Insurance, 2026 to 2036. In the report, CBO presents details underlying the February 2026 projections of federal costs of the subsidized health insurance and the number of people with health insurance coverage through different sources. In 2026, federal subsidies for health insurance, net of related payments to the government, are projected to equal $2.4 trillion, or 7.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) project that those subsidies will grow by 65 percent, reaching $3.9 trillion, or 8.4 percent of GDP, in 2036. Subsidies for Medicare are expected to contribute most to that overall growth, increasing by $900 billion. Further, 318 million people on average are projected to have health insurance in any given month from 2026 to 2036, while 36 million people on average (10 percent of the population) are projected to be uninsured in any given month over that period. The number of uninsured people in CBO's projections will grow from 30 million in 2026 to 37 million in 2036, largely because of provisions of H.R. 1, the WFTC legislation, that are expected to reduce enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP and, to a lesser extent, in the health insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act and the Basic Health Program. About 60 percent of uninsured people in 2036 would be eligible for subsidized coverage.

Hearings & Markups

• On July 20, 2026, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a markup of the following legislation: H.R. 9340, Ratepayer Protection Act; H.R. 9332, Load Forecasting Enhancement Act; H.R. 9339, Affordable Innovation for the Grid Act; H.R. 9335, Advanced Transmission Technology to Reduce Rates Act; H.R. 6633, High-Capacity Grid Act; H.R. 6529, Protecting Families from AI Data Center Energy Costs Act; H.R. 9338, Pipeline Safety Authorization Act of 2026; H.R. 9617, Coordinating and Harnessing America's Recovery of Minerals (CHARM) Act; H.R. 9616, Environmental Monitoring and Remediation Technology Assessment Initiative (EMRTAI) Act of 2026; H.R. 1266, Combating Illicit Xylazine Act; H.R. 2004, Tyler's Law; H.R. 7970, STOP Nitazenes Act; H.R. 1561, ALERT Communities Act; H.R. 7994, HERO Act; H.R. 8005, Stop Pills That Kill Act; H.R. 9393, Lower Costs, More Transparency Act of 2026; and H.R. 9390, Prices on the Wall Act of 2026.
• On July 21, 2026, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee held a roundtable entitled, Medicare Fraud: Examining the Explosive Growth in Skin Substitute Spending. Witnesses present included: Mr. Joseph Capper, Chief Executive Officer, MiMedx Group, Inc.; Dr. Amer Alnajar, Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder, Vytalize Health; Ms. Mara McDermott, Chief Executive Officer, Accountable for Health; and Ms. Jelena Olmstead, Chief Executive Officer, Levaris Global.
• On July 22, 2026, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee held a markup of the following legislation: S. 2355, Patients Deserve Price Tags Act; S. 4189, INSULIN Act of 2026; S. ____, Making America’s Food Safer Act; S. ____, Childhood Diabetes Reduction Act; S. 1414, Expedited Access to Biosimilars Act; S. 3788, CLEAR LABELS Act; S. 3794, SAFE Drugs Act of 2026; S. 3014, Ensuring Timely Access to Generics Act of 2025; S. 494, National Plan for Epilepsy Act; S. 4110, EMPOWER for Health Act; S. 1874, Title VIII Nursing Workforce Reauthorization Act of 2025; S. 380, Rural Obstetrics Readiness Act; and S. 3097, Health Information Privacy Reform Act.
• On July 22, 2026, the House Committee on Appropriations held a hearing entitled, Funding Lapses: Analyzing Shutdown Reform. Witnesses present included: The Honorable James Lankford, U.S. Senator, Oklahoma; The Honorable Tom McClintock, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, California’s 5^th Congressional District; Ms. Shalanda Young, Resident Scholar, New York University School of Law.

Other Health Policy News

• On July 21, 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule entitled, Medicaid Program; Amending the Indirect Hold Harmless Threshold of Health Care Related Taxes. The rule would implement Section 71115 of H.R. 1, the Working Families Tax Cut (WFTC) legislation, which established new indirect hold harmless thresholds for health care-related taxes.

Currently, states generally may not collect provider taxes that exceed six percent of net patient revenue for the applicable provider class. Effective October 1, 2026, WFTC legislation generally sets the threshold for each permissible class based on the level of provider taxes that were enacted and imposed as of July 4, 2025. The rule also defines when a provider tax is considered “enacted” and “imposed” for purposes of determining a state’s baseline threshold. Beginning October 1, 2027, the allowable provider tax threshold for most provider classes will phase down in Medicaid expansion states.

CMS also proposes to eliminate the secondary “75/75” prong of the indirect hold harmless test. Under current regulations, some provider taxes that exceed the applicable threshold may nevertheless remain permissible if fewer than 75 percent of providers receive payments that cover at least 75 percent of their tax costs. Removing this provision would make the July 4, 2025, threshold the maximum permissible level. In addition, the rule would create a new provider tax category for health insurers and impose a range of new reporting and compliance requirements on states. Collectively, the rule would significantly expand federal oversight of state provider tax programs.

Comments will be accepted through September 21, 2026.

The proposed rule as published in the Federal Register may be found here. The CMS fact sheet may be found here.

• On July 21, 2026, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce unanimously approved H.R. 9393, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act of 2026 (LCMT) during a full committee markup of 17 pieces of legislation, all of which were favorably reported to the full House. The LCMT Act would require hospitals to annually publish a list of standard charges and costs for shoppable services and authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to require more frequent updates through rulemaking. Similar requirements would apply to ambulatory surgical centers, clinical laboratories, and imaging service providers. The bill also includes a separate set of requirements for health insurance plans and issuers to disclose cost-sharing liability to beneficiaries and publicly disclose negotiated payment rates for each provider. The bill would also require disclosure of certain ownership information for each of these organizations. A version of this bill had previously passed the House in the last Congress but was not considered in the Senate.

• The Committee-passed version of this bill included an Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute (AINS) that incorporated several of the bills slated for markup into this piece of legislation. These bills include: H.R. 9397, Premium Transparency Act; H.R. 9396, Prior Authorization Accountability Act; H.R. 3514, Improving Seniors' Timely Access to Care Act of 2025; H.R. 9392, Medicare Advantage Cost Transparency Act; H.R. 5243, To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to increase data transparency for supplemental benefits under Medicare Advantage; H.R. 9389, Nutrition Education and Chronic Disease Prevention in Community Health Centers Act of 2026; H.R. 8201, Expanding Community Access to Health Services Act; H.R. 5526, Biosimilar Red Tape Elimination Act; H.R. 8908, STOP GAMES Act of 2026; and H.R. 9661, Expedited Access to Biosimilars Act. The full text of the LCMT Act as amended may be found here. More information on the markup may be found here.

• On July 21, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the federal government in a payment dispute over the 340B Drug Pricing Program (340B Program), which requires drugmakers to offer discounted drugs to certain entities, including safety-net hospitals, in exchange for participating in Medicare and Medicaid. In 2024, pharmaceutical companies attempted to impose a rebate model upon hospitals’ purchases of 340B drugs. HHS informed manufacturers that they needed agency approval to make that change and the drug manufacturers responded with a lawsuit, arguing that they should be able to impose this approach without HHS approval. In 2025, a district court sided with HHS, noting that the 340B statute in the Public Health Service Act requires HHS to approve rebate mechanisms. This appellate ruling upheld the 2025 decision affirming HHS’s authority to approve rebate mechanisms. While the appellate court expressly declined to comment on the legality of HHS’s proposed rebate pilot program for drugs selected under the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, the court stated that “rebate models can be consistent with Section 340B’s auditing scheme”. The Court of Appeals’ ruling may be found here.

• On July 22, 2026, HHS announced a partnership with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to launch a series of National Science and Technology Challenges that invite America’s scientific community to apply next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) to some of the nation’s most urgent health challenges. The flagship challenge will focus on identifying the root causes of chronic disease. Additional challenges will accelerate research on pediatric cancer and transform drug discovery and development. In addition to the chronic disease challenge, HHS will launch research challenges focused on accelerating breakthroughs in pediatric cancer research by identifying new biological insights and therapeutic opportunities and transforming drug discovery and development by using AI to shorten development timelines, identify promising therapeutic targets, and bring safe, effective treatments to patients faster. The HHS press release highlighting this partnership may be found here.

   

• On July 22, 2026, HHS announced that CMS sent a notification urging every state Medicaid director to phase out the use of mercury-containing dental fillings by restricting or ending their respective state’s Medicaid coverage for dental procedure codes for “dental amalgams.” Dental amalgams are a material that combines mercury with other heavy metals to fill cavities but pose health and environmental risks. The notifications were sent via email and reminded state Medicaid directors of a February decision by the Indian Health Service to “end the use of mercury-containing dental amalgam in its facilities by 2027.” HHS notes that evidence has demonstrated that mercury exposure from dental amalgam could pose elevated health risks to vulnerable populations, including pregnant women and their babies, women trying to become pregnant, children under the age of six, people with neurological diseases or impaired kidney function, and other groups. The notification also reminded states that the U.S. “is a party to the international Minamata Convention on mercury, and as of November 2025, there is a commitment among parties to the Convention to phase out the use of dental amalgam by 2034.” The affiliated HHS press release may be found here.

   

• On July 22, 2026, the House of Representatives passed a Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget resolution framework for a third reconciliation package (Reconciliation 3.0) totaling $95 billion in spending by a vote of 216-214. The package would include: $60 billion in defense funding; $13 billion allocated to intelligence programs; $12 billion in farm and agriculture aid; and $10 billion for the House Administration Committee, which oversees election administration policy, to implement provisions related to H.R. 7296, the SAVE America Act. The resolution does not provide reconciliation instructions to the House Energy and Commerce Committee or the House Ways and Means Committee, which both hold jurisdiction over health policy in the House. Therefore, the legislative package does not directly implicate health policy at this time, although this is subject to revision by the Senate. The text of the resolution may be found here.

   

• On July 22, 2026, the Senate HELP Committee favorably reported S. 2355, the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act (PDPTA), to the Senate floor by a vote of 21-1. This bill would require hospitals to disclose on a quarterly basis, in machine-readable files, all gross charges, cash prices, and negotiated rates between plans and providers, and in a consumer-friendly list, similar price information for shoppable services. Similar requirements are included for ambulatory surgical centers, clinical laboratories, and imaging service providers. The bill also includes a separate set of requirements for health insurance plans to disclose cost-sharing liability to beneficiaries and publicly disclose negotiated payment rates for each provider. The bill further requires disclosure of certain ownership information for each of these organizations. Providers or facilities must include a detailed itemized bill of each distinct item or service upon request. Additionally, the bill would amend portions of the No Surprises Act to prohibit providers from charging insured patients for services that were not disclosed in a good faith estimate provided to the patient’s insurance plan when generating an advanced explanation of benefits (EOB), unless such services were medically necessary and could not reasonably have been anticipated in advance by the provider. During the markup, the Committee favorably reported 10 additional pieces of legislation, including S. 1414, Expedited Access to Biosimilars Act and S. 1874, Title VIII Nursing Workforce Reauthorization Act of 2025. The full text of the PDPTA may be found here. More information on the markup may be found here.

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