When it comes to AI agents, the makers of QuickBooks are hoping that youre into it.
Intuitthe fintech platform that owns TurboTax, Credit Karma, Mailchimp, and QuickBooksannounced that it has implemented a new set of AI agents into its products. The company showcased how the AI agents work within QuickBooks at an event on June 24, and Fast Company was able to see a demonstration of how the agents can help business owners and entrepreneurs use them to speed up their bookkeeping and accounting processes.
QuickBooks will incorporate a Payments Agent, an Accounting Agent, a Customer Agent, and a Finance Agent, all of which are designed to become intimately familiar with a businesss specific customer base and financial track record, offer up insights, and make additional analyses. And though its just now being rolled out, the new AI capabilities have been in the works for a long time.
This is five or six years in the making, Sasan Goodarzi, Intuits CEO, tells Fast Company. Weve made huge investments in the past five years, he says, and the company has taken its time because when it comes to bookkeeping and accounting, accuracy matters.
[Image: Intuit]
In other words, Goodarzi says that while an AI tool like ChatGPT might spit out wrong or incorrect information, a customer relying on QuickBooks to crunch their numbers needs to be absolutely sure and trust in Intuits accuracyotherwise, they could find themselves with serious issues. As such, Intuit wanted to make sure everything was above board before launching to its full customer base. If it screws up, its a big problem, he says.
Additionally, Goodarzi says that business owners are relying on a huge number of apps and platforms to run their companies, an issue that Intuit is trying to simplify. What Im hearing from customers all the time is that theyre over-digitized, there are too many apps. Theyre not getting the benefit from their time and money, he says. This is about creating a one-stop shop, a refreshed way to discover all of the capabilities within QuickBooks, he says, noting that many of Intuits customers are unaware of how many tools exist within the QuickBooks ecosystem.
And its the discovery and engagement with those tools that Goodarzi says has been the area of the most positive feedback.
But the primary question: Are the AI implementations actually producing value for users? Yes, Goodarzi says. He notes that during the testing phase, the new AI capabilities have led to significant time and money savings for users, though that can be difficult to quantify, and expects that the new features will both resonate with QuickBooks wider user base when they officially launch on July 1, and help the companys bottom line.
I was talking about AI changing the world six years ago, and people were laughing at me, he says. Now, were actually seeing natural adoption, driving incredible value.
Anna Wintour, an icon in the fashion industry who has been at the helm of Vogue for nearly four decades, will be stepping down as editor-in-chief, according to a number of publications including WWD and Business of Fashion.
Wintour told staffers on Thursday the company is seeking a new head of editorial content at American Vogue, per USA Today. She will remain as Condé Nast’s chief content officer and as Vogue’s global editorial director.
She is best known for her impeccable sense of fashionimmortalized by her famous bob hairstyle, large sunglasses, and Georgian Collet necklacesas well as for helming the Met Gala, considered one of fashion’s most exclusive social events.
As a businesswoman, she has been criticized and praised for her direct, take-no-prisoners “girl boss” management style, which was immortalized in the 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada, in which her character was played by Meryl Streep.
Wintourwho is British, but become a U.S. citizen in 1972 after marrying American child psychologist David Shafferhas presided over Vogue since 1988, making it the “fashion bible” that it is today.
As chief content officer, Wintour oversees a number of Condé Nast brands, including: Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, AD, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, Bon Appetit, Tatler, World of Interiors, Allure, and others, except The New Yorker, which editor David Remnick runs.
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Since the Pandemic Housing Boom fizzled out, major homebuilders across various marketsespecially in top pandemic boomtownshave had to cut net effective home prices to avoid a deeper sales pullback. However, some builders, like Lennar and D.R. Horton, have primarily done so through larger incentivessuch as mortgage rate buydownsin part to protect community comps and avoid upsetting buyers already in their backlog.
Speaking to analysts on Tuesday, KB Homewhich prefers outright home price cuts over incentivessaid that some buyers turning to some of their competitors are effectively overpaying for new builds just to get rate buydowns, and if they need to sell in the immediate future, they might not be able to fetch the artificially high base price they paid.
I believe that there are customers [of other homebuilders] that are overpaying for the home to effectively get an incentive. So they’re tied into this higher price that they’re gonna be stuck with forever until they sell that home. They may potentially be upside down when they try to sell that home versus a clean, simple, transparent way of sellingthe value of what we offer, KB Home COO Rob McGibney said on the builders June 23, 2025 earnings call.
Below are ResiClubs other takeaways from KB Homes Q2 earnings report and earnings call this week.
KB Home says the 2025 housing market is softer than expected
KB Homes net new orders by Q2:
Q2 2018 > 3,532
Q2 2019 > 4,064
Q2 2020 > 1,758 (COVID-19 lockdowns)
Q2 2021 > 4,300
Q2 2022 > 3,914
Q2 2023 > 3,936
Q2 2024 > 3,997
Q2 2025 > 3,460
The actions we began to take late in our 2025 first quarter, evaluating base pricing in every community relative to local market conditions, then repositioning our communities with a focus on offering the most compelling value, led to strong net orders in March. However, our net orders declined in April and May, which did not follow the typical spring trajectory, said KB Home COO Rob McGibney.
McGibney added that: As a result, even though our average community count was in line with our projection, and our cancellation rate was fairly steady, our monthly absorption pace per community was 4.5 net orders compared to 5.5 in last year’s second quarter. While our net order pace was below our internal goal, we believe it ranks high among the large production homebuilders.
KB Home: All of the markets we operate in experienced some level of softening at some point during the quarter
While the pricing story continues to be very local and vary a great deal across the country, most markets are at least seeing some softening.
I would say that all of the markets we operate in experienced some level of softening at some point during the quarter, KB Home COO Rob McGibney told investors on Tuesday. Markets that I would say where we’re still seeing relatively strong demand and sales performance would be Las Vegas, the Inland Empire, the North Bay in Northern California, Texas markets like Houston and San Antonio.
McGibney added that: By contrast, some of the markets that are facing some more significant headwinds recently are like Sacramento and Seattle. They’ve slowed down a little bit, and we’ve had to do a little more there with price relative to some of the others. Markets like Austin and Colorado, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Florida [have been weaker too]. Places where resale supply has increased and starts putting pressure on pricing and creating more competition and just more choices for buyers. But, you know, it is very local, very specific, [we] can’t put a market condition on an entire state or even an entire market in most cases, it’s community by community.
KB Home had to make some bigger price cuts in markets where resale inventory is above 6 months
On Tuesday, KB Home told analysts that it cut base home prices in half of its communities in the quarter ending May 31st.
In the markets where you’ve seen resale inventory or resale supply get back to norms or above those norms of six or seven months of supplythose resales become a more formidable competitor than they were to us back when we would measure months of supply in terms of weeks instead of months. And on the flip side, most of the markets where resale supply has stayed fairly suppresed and limited, we’re tending to see better results there, KB Home COO Rob McGibney told analysts on Tuesday.
Margin compression continues
During the Pandemic Housing Boom, many publicly traded homebuilders achieved record profit margins as home prices soared and buyer demand ran red hot. Ever since the national housing demand boom fizzled out in the summer of 2022, many large homebuilders have reduced margin and made affordability/pricing adjustments where and when needed to maintain their sales pace or prevent a bigger sales pullback.
That includes KB Home, which reported a housing gross profit margin of 19.3% in Q2 2025or 19.7% excluding inventory chargesdown from a cycle peak of 26.7% in Q3 2022. Its margin has now compressed all the way back to pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
KB Home: Only two minor price increases [related to tariffs] to date
So far, tariffs havent had much impact on KB Homes material costs.
Homes that we started in May came in at the lowest cost per square foot year to date, as our divisions are continuing to drive better performance on cost. Our costs, including lumber, are protected for almost all of our third-quarter starts under the terms of our supply contracts. Our national purchasing team, working with our divisions, has done an excellent job holding off tariff-related cost increases, with only two minor price increases to date, KB Home COO Rob McGibney told analysts on Tuesday.
The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.5% annual pace from January through March as President Donald Trumps trade wars disrupted business, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in an unexpected deterioration of earlier estimates.
First-quarter growth was weighed down by a surge of imports as U.S. companies, and households, rushed to buy foreign goods before Trump could impose tariffs on them. The Commerce Department previously estimated that the economy fell 0.2% in the first quarter. Economists had forecast no change in the department’s third and final estimate.
The January-March drop in gross domestic product the nations output of goods and services reversed a 2.4% increase in the last three months of 2024 and marked the first time in three years that the economy contracted. Imports expanded 37.9%, fastest since 2020, and pushed GDP down by nearly 4.7 percentage points.
Consumer spending also slowed sharply, expanding just 0.5%, down from a robust 4% in the fourth-quarter of last year. It is a significant downgrade from the Commerce Department’s previous estimate.
Consumers have turned jittery since Trump started plastering big taxes on imports, anticipating that the tariffs will impact their finances directly.
And the Conference Board reported this week that Americans view of the U.S. economy worsened in June, resuming a downward slide that had dragged consumer confidence in April to its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index slid to 93 in June, down 5.4 points from 98.4 last month. A measure of Americans short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market fell 4.6 points to 69. Thats well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead.
Former Federal Reserve economist Claudia Sahm said the downward revision to consumer spending today is a potential red flag.” Sahm, now chief economist at New Century Advisors, noted that Commerce downgraded spending on recreation services and foreign travel which could have reflect great consumer pessimism and uncertainty.”
A category within the GDP data that measures the economys underlying strength rose at a 1.9% annual rate from January through March. It’s a decent number, but down from 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2024 and from the Commerce Department’s previous estimate of 2.5% January-March growth.
This category includes consumer spending and private investment but excludes volatile items like exports, inventories and government spending.
And federal government spending fell at a 4.6% annual pace, the biggest drop since 2022.
In another sign that Trump’s policies are disrupting trade,
Trade deficits reduce GDP. But thats just a matter of mathematics. GDP is supposed to count only whats produced domestically, not stuff that comes in from abroad. So imports which show up in the GDP report as consumer spending or business investment have to be subtracted out to keep them from artificially inflating domestic production.
The first-quarter import influx likely wont be repeated in the April-June quarter and therefore shouldnt weigh on GDP. In fact, economists expect second-quarter growth to bounce back to 3% in the second quarter, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.
The first look at April-June GDP growth is due July 30.
____
This story has been corrected to show that the drop in federal spending was the biggest since 2022, not 1986.
Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
As Venice readies for Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos’s multi-day wedding extravaganza, it’s no longer just gondolas floating around the city’s famous waterwaysit’s creepy Bezos mannequins as well.
The long-awaited nuptials of the Amazon founder and the journalist is bringing flocks of celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Ivanka Trump, and the Kardashians to the small city, booking most of the city’s elite water taxis, gondolas, and docks.
While Venice has hosted star-studded weddings in the pastincluding that of Amal and George Clooneynone have drawn as much criticism, due in part to the event’s extravagant nature. For instance, just days before the wedding, the couple celebrated a foam party aboard their $500 million super yacht.
Locals and internet activists have been rallying in protest of not just the wedding, but of Amazon’s labor practices, its founder’s mass accumulation of wealth, overtourism, and the disruption of daily lives for locals. As a result, organized efforts are giving the wedding party a not-so-warm welcome along the way.
To keep up with the chaos, Fast Company rounded up some of the pre-wedding protests, breaking down some of the strange yet somewhat successful efforts.
“No Space for Bezos”
A nod to Bezos and Sánchez’s now infamous space-travel pursuits, “No Space for Bezos” is the unifying movement for activists opposing the local government’s alleged prioritization of tourism above local residents.
The movement gained traction following a now viral stunt, draping St. Mark’s Square with a large banner reading “If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax.” Below the text was a large image of Bezos laughing.
[Photo: Stefano Rellandini/AFP via Getty Images]
Since then, grassroots efforts have plastered the city with banners across famous sites, and have gained the support of larger organizations like Greenpeace and U.K. group Everyone Hates Elon.
Floating mannequins
On the stranger end of protests, several mannequins resembling Bezos and Sánchez have been spotted around the Floating City’s canals.
In one, the figures are dressed in wedding attire aboard a gondola, with a cardboard sign featuring Amazon’s logo. “The live versions are creepier,” one user commented on the TikTok video.
Another viral video features a man throwing a mannequin held onto an Amazon package box into Venice’s grand canal. The mannequin appears to be wearing a blue suit resembling the one used on the infamous space mission, and is holding fake dollar bills.
Online mockery
Beyond the more organized protests, countless people have taken social media to mock the event, particularly a now leaked image of the wedding’s invitation.
While the invitation asks guests not to bring giftsbut rather provide donations to Venice-related causes, including UNESCO Venice, CORILA, and Venice International Universityit gained attention due to its kitschy design.
On the r/CrappyDesign subreddit, a now-deleted post of the invite drew ridicule and criticism, with one user commenting, “Youve got all the money in the world and you do an invite that looks like it was designed by a 10-year-old on MS Paint.”
Another user on TikTok commented on the invitation, making a video saying, “You are shitting money every two seconds, I was expecting some Ambani-level shit, I was expecting opulence.” She added, “I need rich people to rich right.”
What have the wedding planners said about the backlash?
Reached for comment by Fast Company earlier this week, the events team that is organizing the wedding said it has aimed to minimize disruptions. It also emphasized that it has overwhelmingly hired locals to staff the event.
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin said on Thursday tariffs are very likely to push inflation up over coming months, in remarks that said U.S. central bank policy is where it needs to be to deal with what lies ahead.
I do believe we will see pressure on prices, Barkin told a gathering of the New York Association for Business Economics.
When it comes to tariffs and their impact on price pressures, to date, these increases have had only modest effects on measured inflation, but I anticipate more pressure is coming, amid comments from businesses that they expect to pass at least some of the rise in import taxes imposed by President Donald Trump.
That said, I dont expect the impact on inflation to be anywhere near as significant as what we just experienced during the pandemic and there are signs that consumers will try to move away from tariffed goods, which could limit some of the upsides for higher inflation.
Last week, the Feds most recent gathering of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee saw officials leave their overnight target rate unchanged at between 4.25% and 4.5%. Uncertainty over the outlook is keeping the central bank on the sidelines amid expectations the tariffs will push up inflation this year while depressing growth and hiring.
In his remarks, Barkin noted the Fed is facing risks on both its job and inflation mandates. Citing the uncertainty of the outlook, Barkin declined to say where monetary policy is heading, while cautioning there are a number of scenarios in play for the central bank’s interest rate target and the exact timing of a rate move matter much less than many expect.
While most Fed officials are in a wait-and-see mode and Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated that message this week in testimony before Congress, some officials on the Board of Governors have said they view tariffs as a one-time price increase and are open to cutting short-term interest rates at the late July FOMC meeting.
Futures markets believe the Fed will cut rates at the September FOMC meeting. Barkin told reporters after his speech that policymakers should never take any action off the table, while adding he’s still seeking data to know what to do with interest rate policy.
“Given the strength in todays economy, we have time to track developments patiently and allow the visibility to improve, Barkin said, adding, when it does, we are well positioned to address whatever the economy will require.
Barkin also said that given inflation had been on a cooling trend at the onset of the tariff regime, hiking rates to contain price pressures “doesn’t seem like the topic of the day.”
Barkin said that as the economy now stands things look pretty good and recent inflation data was encouraging. He said job growth has been healthy.
Michael S. Derby, Reuters
States can block the countrys biggest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid money for health services such as contraception and cancer screenings without facing lawsuits from patients, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
The 6-3 opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by the rest of the courts conservatives was not directly about abortion, but it comes as Republicans back a wider push across the country to defund the organization. It closes off Planned Parenthood’s primary court path to keeping Medicaid funding in place: patient lawsuits.
The justices found that while Medicaid law allows people to choose their own provider, that does not make it a right enforceable in court. The court split along ideological lines, with the three liberals dissenting in the case from South Carolina.
Public health care money generally cannot be used to pay for abortions, but Medicaid patients go to Planned Parenthood for other needs in part because it can be difficult to find a doctor who takes the publicly funded insurance, the organization has said.
Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) said Planned Parenthood should not get any taxpayer money. The budget bill backed by President Donald Trump in Congress would also cut Medicaid money for the group. That could force the closure of about 200 centers, most of them in states where abortion is legal, Planned Parenthood has said.
McMaster first moved to cut off the Medicaid funding in 2018, but he was blocked in court after a lawsuit from a patient, Julie Edwards, who wanted to keep going to Planned Parenthood for birth control because her diabetes makes pregnancy potentially dangerous. She sued over a provision in Medicaid law that allows patients to choose their own qualified provider.
South Carolina argued that patients should not be able to file such lawsuits. The state pointed to lower courts that have been swayed by similar arguments and allowed states such as Texas to act against Planned Parenthood.
The high court majority agreed.
Deciding whether to permit private enforcement poses delicate policy questions involving competing costs and benefitsdecisions for elected representatives, not judges, Gorsuch wrote. He pointed out that patients can appeal through other administrative processes if coverage is denied.
McMaster, in a statement, said his state had taken a stand to protect the sanctity of life and defend South Carolinas authority and valuesand today, we are finally victorious.
In a dissent joined by her liberal colleagues, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the ruling is likely to result in tangible harm to real people.
It will strip those South Caroliniansand countless other Medicaid recipients around the countryof a deeply personal freedom: the ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable,'” she wrote.
Planned Parenthood officials said the decision will hamper access to care such as preventive screenings for 1 million Medicaid recipients in South Carolina and that other conservative states will likely take similar steps.
Instead of patients now deciding where to get care, that now lies with the state, said Katherine Farris, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. If they fall on hard financial times, as many are right now, they are fundamentally less free.”
She said South Carolina did not say Planned Parenthood provided inadequate care, describing it as political decision.
Other conservative states are expected to follow South Carolina’s lead with funding cuts, potentially creating a backdoor abortion ban, said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Medicaid patients make up 3.5% of the organizations South Carolina patients who come for services unrelated to abortion or gender-affirming care, officials said. Because South Carolina has not expanded its Medicaid program, reimbursements do not cover its preventive care costs, spokesperson Molly Rivera said.
Public health groups like the American Cancer Society have said in court papers that lawsuits are the only real way that Medicaid patients have been able to enforce their ability to choose their own doctor. Losing that ability is expected to reduce access to healthcare for people on the program, which is estimated to include one-quarter of everyone in the country. Rural areas could be especially affected, advocates said in court papers.
In South Carolina, $90,000 in Medicaid funding goes to Planned Parenthood every year, a tiny fraction of the states total Medicaid spending. The state banned abortion at about six weeks gestation after the Supreme Court overturned it as a nationwide right in 2022. The state says other providers can fill a healthcare void left by Planned Parenthood’s removal from Medicaid.
By Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Meg Kinnard contributed to this report.
Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff said the company now relies on artificial intelligence for 30% to 50% of its entire workload.
The software giant, like many other tech companies in Silicon Valley, including Microsoft and Google, is going all in on the AI boom.
All of us have to get our head around this idea that AI could do things, that before, we were doing, and we can move on to do higher value work, Benioff told Bloomberg, including positions like software engineering and customer service. “It’s these agents, these digital laborers, digital employees who are out there doing this work servicing the customers, selling to the customer, marketing to the customer, partnering with me to do the analytics, do the marketing, the branding.”
Benioff said he even writes his yearly business plan with an AI partner, along with a “human” Salesforce executive, adding the company was on track to have one billion of these “agents” before the end of the year. (65% of companies are now experimenting with AI agents, according to an April KPMG survey.)
Benioff also estimated that Salesforce has reached 93% accuracy with the AI product it’s selling to customers, including Walt Disney Co., which was developed to carry out tasks such as customer service without human supervision, according to Bloomberg. Benioff added that it’s not “realistic” to reach 100% accuracy, and that other companies are at “much lower levels because they don’t have as much data and metadata.”
The software giant was ranked the No. 1 customer relationship management (CRM) software provider in 2025 for the 12th consecutive year; its clients include Apple, Boeing, Amazon, Walmart, and McDonald’s, to name a few.
According to Bloomberg, AI is ushering in a new era of “the tiny team.” Gone are the days when Silicon Valley companies rapidly hire as they scale; now tech companies are in a race to the bottom, competing to see who can manage the lowest headcount in an effort to cut costs and increase efficiencies.
The AI boom comes at a time when many tech companies are slashing jobs, in part to keep up with inflation and increased economic uncertainty, spurred on by the Trump administration’s tariffs and conflict with Iran.
Salesforce by the numbers
Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) was trading up less than 1% on Thursday at the time of this writing in midday trading.
In the company’s latest round of earnings for the first quarter, which ended April 30, the company reported revenue of $9.8 billion, up nearly 8% year-over-year, beating analyst expectations, and raised guidance “by $400 million to $41.3 billion at the high end of the range.” Earnings per share (EPS) came in at $2.58, topping estimates of $2.55.
Benioff said Salesforce has “built a deeply unified enterprise AI platformwith agents, data, apps, and a metadata platform . . . with Agentforce, Data Cloud, our Customer 360 apps, Tableau, and Slack all built on one trusted, unified foundation, [so] companies of every size can build a digital labor forceboosting productivity, reducing costs, and accelerating growth.”
The company had a market capitalization of $257 billion at the time of this writing. Its next earnings report is scheduled for late August.
The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul central to President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill does not adhere to the chamber’s procedural rules, delivering a crucial blow as Republicans rush to finish the package this week.
Guidance from the parliamentarian is rarely ignored, and Republican leaders are now forced to consider difficult options. Republicans were counting on big cuts to Medicaid and other programs to offset trillions of dollars in Trump tax breaks, their top priority. Additionally, the Senate’s chief arbiter of its often complicated rules had advised against various GOP provisions barring certain immigrants from health care programs.
Republicans scrambled Thursday to respond, with some calling for challenging, or firing, the nonpartisan parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who has been on the job since 2012. Democrats said the decisions would devastate GOP plans.
We have contingency plans,” said Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota.
He did not say whether Friday’s votes were on track, but he insisted that were plowing forward.
But Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the Republican proposals would have meant $250 billion less for the healthcare program, massive Medicaid cuts that hurt kids, seniors, Americans with disabilities, and working families.
Trump wants action on the bill
The outcome is a setback as Senate Republicans hoped to get votes underway by week’s end to meet Trumps Fourth of July deadline for passage. Trump is expected to host an event later Thursday in the White House East Room, joined by truck drivers, firefighters, tipped workers, ranchers, and others that the administration says will benefit from the bill as he urges Congress to pass it, according to a White House official.
GOP leaders were already struggling to rally support for Medicaid changes that some senators said went too far and would have left millions without coverage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said over 10.9 million more people would not have healthcare under the House-passed bill; Senate Republicans were proposing deeper cuts.
Republican leaders are relying on the Medicaid provider tax change along with other healthcare restrictions to save billions of dollars and offset the cost of trillions of dollars in tax cuts. Those tax breaks from Trump’s first term would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, meaning a tax increase for Americans.
GOP torn over Medicaid cuts
Several GOP senators said cutting the Medicaid provider tax change in particular would hurt rural hospitals that depend on the money. Hospital organizations have warned that it could lead to hospital closures.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), among those fighting the change, said he had spoken to Trump late Wednesday and that the president told him to revert back to an earlier proposal from the House.
I think it just confirms that we werent ready for a vote yet, said Sen. Thom Tillis, (R-NC), who also had raised concerns about the provider tax cuts.
States impose the taxes as a way to help fund Medicaid, largely by boosting the reimbursements they receive from the federal government. Critics say the system is a type of laundering, but almost every state except Alaska uses it to help provide healthcare coverage.
More than 80 million people in the United States use the Medicaid program, alongside the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. Republicans want to scale Medicaid back to what they say is its original mission: providing care mainly to women and children, rather than a much larger group of people.
The House-passed bill would freeze the provider taxes at current levels. The Senate proposal goes deeper by reducing the tax that some states are able to impose.
Tough choices ahead
Senate GOP leaders can strip or revise the provisions that are in violation of the chamber’s rules. But if they move ahead, those measures could be challenged in a floor vote, requiring a 60-vote threshold to overcome objections. That would be a tall order in a Senate divided 53-47 and with Democrats unified against Trump’s bill.
It’s pretty frustrating, said Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who wants even steeper reductions.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stopped short of calls against the parliamentarian. I have no intention of overruling her, he said.
To help defray lost revenues to the hospitals, one plan Republicans had been considering would have created a rural hospital fund with $15 billion as backup. Some GOP senators said that was too much; others, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, wanted at least $100 billion.
The parliamentarian has worked around the clock since late last week to assess the legislation before votes that were expected as soon as Friday.
Overnight Wednesday, the parliamentarian advised against GOP student loan repayment plans, and Thursday advised against provisions that would have blocked access for immigrants who are not citizens to Medicaid, Medicare, and other healthcare programs, including one that would have cut money to states that allow some migrants into Medicaid.
Earlier, proposals to cut food stamps were ruled in violation of Senate rules, as was a plan to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
By Lisa Mascaro, AP congressional correspondent
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Leah Askarinam, Joey Cappelletti and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has previously made statements skeptical of vaccines, is now recommending the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for infants.On Thursday, RFK’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to recommend clesrovimab, a new RSV antibody shot made by Merck, for infants 8 months and younger who don’t have protection from a maternal vaccine (a vaccine received in pregnancy).
A broader vaccine review is underway
The decision comes after the panel announced on Wednesday it would be reviewing the current childhood immunization schedule. The committee is set to vote on recommendations for the influenza vaccine, as well.
The RSV shot was approved for use in infants earlier this month by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). ENFLONSIA provides an important new preventive option to help protect healthy and at-risk infants born during or entering their first RSV season with the same dose regardless of weight, said Dr. Dean Y. Li, president, Merck Research Laboratories, said at the time.Li continued, We are committed to ensuring availability of ENFLONSIA in the U.S. before the start of the upcoming RSV season to help reduce the significant burden of this widespread seasonal infection on families and health care systems.
According to the CDC, RSV infects nearly everyone by age 2, causing cold symptoms, and sometimes, breathing struggles. In the U.S., around 300 infant deaths are caused by RSV each year.
The vote, which passed with five for the vaccine and two against, is the first decision from RFK’s committee, made up of members whom RFK handpicked after dismissing the previous panel of 17 members in its entirety. The current panel includes some vaccine skeptics. Retsef Levi, an operations management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Vicki Pebsworth, the research director of a group focused on preventing vaccine injuries and deaths, were the two members who voted against the shot.
Kennedys history of vaccine misinformation
Trump’s controversial pick for HHS Secretary has frequently made false claims on the topic of vaccines. In regard to COVID, Kennedy once falsely claimed that some race groups have natural immunity to the virus. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately, Kennedy said. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.
RFKs critics feel that having a vaccine skeptic at the helm of the HHS is already cause for concern after the CDC began postponing meetings on national vaccine recommendations in February.
After the committee also announced that it would start a renewed review of all recommended pediatric vaccines, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) put out a video titled, AAP Steps up on Vaccine Recommendations,” which warned that immunization policy through ACIP is “no longer a credible process” under RFK’s leadership. The AAP added that it will continue to publish its own recommendations on vaccines for children.
Uncertainty at the CDC’s helm
Thursdays recommendation from RFKs panel still has to be endorsed by the CDC. However, there is major confusion surrounding who is currently in charge of the organization, as it doesn’t seem to have a clear leader. Kennedy, and others, have recently sidestepped questions about the matter.
Then, last week, RFK gave the name Matt Buzzelli, who he described as a public health expert” when Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester pressed him on who the current acting director was. The CDCs leadership page has Matthew Buzzelli, a trial lawyer with no health-related experience, listed fourth as the agencys chief of staff. Following the exchange, the Senator sent RFK a letter, expressing grave concern.
