Ledyard King

Mar 18, 2025 | nationaljournal.com | Erin Durkin |Ledyard King

Amidst staffing layoffs and efforts to modernize the nation’s organ-transplant process, stakeholders worry a loss of knowledge and expertise could detrimentally impact an already fragile system. The current organ-transplant system is far from perfect, with 17 people per day dying while awaiting a transplant and more than 100,000 men, women, and children on the national waiting list. Every eight minutes, a person is added to that list.

Mar 3, 2025 | nationaljournal.com | Cristina Maza |Ledyard King |Savannah Behrmann |Erin Durkin

Following a disastrous Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump, and Vice President J.D. Vance, Europe is scrambling to support Kyiv and simultaneously salvage the flailing transatlantic relationship.

Jan 23, 2025 | nationaljournal.com | Cristina Maza |Erin Durkin |Ledyard King

High-level government vacancies, uncertain funding levels, and a new sweeping executive order have thrown U.S. foreign aid into limbo, raising questions about how and whether Washington will continue to assist countries in need. On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order suspending all foreign development assistance for the next 90 days. The new administration said that would give it time to determine whether such aid aligns with Trump’s foreign policy agenda.

Jan 22, 2025 | nationaljournal.com | Ledyard King |Erin Durkin |Erika Filter |Cristina MazaCasey Wooten

MAGA acolyte Brandon Gill of Texas and liberal firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York don’t see eye-to-eye on much. But on this they agree: There aren’t enough young voices like theirs on Capitol Hill. “I think for younger Americans in particular, the America we experience is very different than the America that a lot of other people in this body experienced,” said Gill, 30, a freshman House member who grew up on a Texas cattle farm and became an investment banker on Wall Street.

Jan 21, 2025 | nationaljournal.com | Erin Durkin |Savannah Behrmann |Ledyard King

Lawmakers are taking a closer look at policies to equalize Medicare payments for services across different health care settings, an idea that has long received pushback from hospitals fearful of smaller payments from Washington. The current Medicare payment system reimburses at different rates for the same service depending on where this care is being delivered: a physician’s office, a hospital outpatient department, or an ambulatory surgical center.