Hello from the Common Health Coalition! The 2-4-2 Digest is a weekly snapshot for health leaders - 4 key insights in 2 minutes or with 2 swipes on your phone. 

Weekly Health Insights

ACIP: The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met last Thursday and Friday. The committee recommended access to Covid-19 vaccines for individuals 6 months and older, under shared clinical decision-making. The measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine is no longer an option for a child’s first dose of the series. Hepatitis B saw no vote and thus no change at this time. HHS has not yet approved the recommendations. See our September 2025 ACIP Explainer here.

LGBTQ+ Health: A bipartisan bill from Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Lisa Murkowski seeks to restore the 988 suicide hotline’s dedicated LGBTQ+ youth services, which were cut in July. Nearly 1.5 million calls, texts, and chats have relied on these specialized services since 2022. 

ACA Subsidies: Congress is gridlocked over government funding, with Senate Democrats pushing to extend enhanced ACA subsidies set to expire this year. KFF estimates the lapse could raise premiums by more than 75% for the 24 million adults with ACA Marketplace coverage—nearly half of whom work for a small business or are self-employed. 

Medicaid: A GAO report found Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement program has spent about $54 million on administration compared with $26 million on care since 2021, largely due to new eligibility and reporting systems. Enrollment remains low at around 6,500 adults.

Vax News: Yesterday, HHS announced forthcoming action related to autism, including FDA label changes on acetaminophen in pregnancy and expanded NIH studies on leucovorin, and repeated unfounded correlation to vaccines. Decades of research have consistently found no link between vaccines and autism. Check out the Common Health Coalition’s Vaccine Resources page for additional explainers and toolkits related to immunization policy. 

Colleague Corner

In a new episode of The Other 80 podcast, 13 health leaders, from state health officials to former tech and healthcare executives, share their visions for reimagining U.S. health.

“If I had one moonshot idea at this moment, it would be a way that we were able to provide to all Americans the most fundamental basic health needs and questions that they have. For example, thinking about diabetes, smoking cessation, weight control—that we would be able to braid insurance programs on the back end so that anyone…had access to the most basic preventive health services that they need… making systems work for patients instead of asking patients to work for systems.”

– Dr. Anne Zink, Lecturer & Senior Fellow, Yale School of Public Health; former Alaska CMO

Data Watch

A recent Annenberg Public Policy Center survey found confidence in federal health agencies declined over the past year, driven largely by decreases among Democrats, with Republican confidence in CDC and FDA showing slight increases. Confidence in personal primary health care providers remained high at 86%. 

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