Following the inauguration on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed a slate of executive orders that took aim at areas of health policy, from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to artificial intelligence (AI) to drug cost cuts.
The changes could impact the healthcare industry, as the president has put his focus on a major international healthcare organization, stopped pilot programs, and potentially put millions of ACA members at risk of losing health coverage.
Michael Abrams, managing partner at health consulting firm Numerof & Associates, told Healthcare Brew that while Trump has rescinded these orders, it doesn’t mean he won’t make his own policies related to the ACA, drug pricing, or AI.
“A lot of these [executive orders] that were signed on that first and second day and so on, are about clearing the decks,” he said. “There are things that Trump wiped away with those executive orders, not because necessarily they’re unimportant to him, but because he feels the need to start fresh.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
Here’s a rundown of what’s been signed relating to healthcare.
Withdrawing from WHO. The president signed an executive order to withdraw from the World Health Organization on Jan. 22, 2026, an international and reputable public health agency with over 190 member countries.
In a statement on Jan. 21, the agency posted to its website that it “plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing, and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go.”
The WHO also said it hopes the US will “reconsider.”
Ashish Jha, who serves as dean of the public health school at Brown University and previously worked for the White House as a Covid-19 response coordinator, told Time that pulling out of WHO could lead to more outbreaks of diseases across the world, including in the US.
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Affordable Care Act. Trump also revoked executive orders signed by former President Joe Biden to expand access to ACA coverage.
The orders had lengthened enrollment periods and enhanced funding to help people sign up for ACA plans. As a result, the number of patients on these plans jumped to 24.2 million, more than double the number of enrollees in 2021, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
It’s still unclear what Trump’s long-term plans are for the ACA, but Larry Levitt, EVP for health policy at KFF, told NPR that “on the early [executive orders], Trump doesn’t show his cards.”
Drug pricing and Covid. The president also reversed a three-part Biden-era drug pricing program aimed at reducing the cost of medications. The program consists of three pilots, including one to create purchasing agreements between states for gene and cell therapies.
This program, which was designed to prevent states from paying for ineffective medications, is already in progress, and states were instructed to apply through Feb. 28.
The other pilots were created to cut Medicare Part B costs for drugs with FDA accelerated approval and establish $2 copays on chronic condition generic drugs in Medicare Part D.
It is still unclear if the new administration will pursue any of these initiatives, according to Stat.
Trump also revoked Covid-era orders that had set up how the federal government could work together to respond to future diseases and sustain the public health workforce.
AI in health tech. Trump repealed Biden’s executive order that would have required health tech companies with sensitive data to report safety tests to the federal government. Biden’s executive order had also tasked federal agencies with setting standards to test AI risks.
Politico reported that some industry leaders found this order burdensome, but former Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy Micky Tripathi said the repeal won’t be significant, as he said the department is already doing things mentioned in the executive order.