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KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Cutting Medicaid is hard — even for the GOP

After narrowly passing a budget resolution this spring foreshadowing major Medicaid cuts, Republicans in Congress are having trouble agreeing on specific ways to save billions of dollars from a pool of funding that pays for the program without cutting benefits on which millions of Americans rely.

8 May 2025

Cancer rates are climbing in younger adults and researchers want to know why

A new NIH-led study finds rising rates of 14 cancer types in Americans under 50, especially breast, colorectal, kidney, uterine, and pancreatic cancers. The research urges deeper investigation into shared risk factors and earlier screening strategies.

8 May 2025

Sen. Ron Wyden seeks answers on RFK Jr.’s purge of FOIA staff

The Department of Health and Human Services' mass dismissals of workers who release government records "raise grave transparency, accountability, and privacy concerns," Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday.

8 May 2025

Meet the Florida group chipping away at public benefits one state at a time

As an Arizona bill to block people from using government aid to buy soda headed to the governor's desk in April, the nation's top health official joined Arizona lawmakers in the state Capitol to celebrate its passage.

8 May 2025

Eating disorders affect all races and genders on college campuses

What does a person with an eating disorder look like? The picture may not be as clear-cut as many people think.

8 May 2025

NIH and CMS launch partnership to build real world health data platform

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced a landmark partnership to enable NIH to build a real-world data platform enabling advanced research across claims data, electronic medical records, and consumer wearables.

7 May 2025

Watch: How the FDA opens the door to risky chemicals in America’s food supply

Lining the shelves of American supermarkets are food products with chemicals linked to health concerns.

7 May 2025

Trump policies at odds with ‘make America healthy again’ push

In his March address to Congress, President Donald Trump honored a Texas boy diagnosed with brain cancer. Amid bipartisan applause, he vowed to drive down childhood cancer rates through his "Make America Healthy Again" initiative.

7 May 2025

Trump team’s $500 million bet on old vaccine technology puzzles scientists

The Trump administration's unprecedented $500 million grant for a broadly protective flu shot has confounded vaccine and pandemic preparedness experts, who said the project was in early stages, relied on old technology, and was just one of more than 200 such efforts.

5 May 2025

Clinical trial underway to assess effectiveness and safety of potential Long Covid treatment

A clinical trial is underway to assess the effectiveness and safety of sipavibart, AstraZeneca's long-acting monoclonal antibody designed to provide protection against Covid-19, as a potential treatment for Long Covid, the Nova Southeastern University (NSU) and the Schmidt Initiative for Long Covid (SILC) announced today.

1 May 2025

Study finds key genetic differences between male and female placentas

The genes of male and female placentas have marked differences in how they are expressed, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other institutions.

1 May 2025

HHS and NIH announce the development of next-generation, universal vaccine platform

Colorized transmission electron micrograph of influenza A/H1N1 virus particles. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Institutes for Health (NIH) today announced the development of the next-generation, universal vaccine platform, Generation Gold Standard, using a beta-propiolactone (BPL)-inactivated, whole-virus platform.

1 May 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': 100 days of health policy upheaval

Members of Congress are back in Washington this week, and Republicans are facing hard decisions on how to reduce Medicaid spending, even as new polling shows that would be unpopular among their voters.

1 May 2025

Trump restores Title X funding for two anti-abortion states — while wiping it out elsewhere

The Trump administration quietly restored federal family planning money to Tennessee and Oklahoma, despite court rulings that the states weren’t entitled to funds because they refused to provide women information about terminating pregnancies or abortion referrals on request.

30 Apr 2025

As a diversity grant dies, young scientists fear it will haunt their careers

Adelaide Tovar, a University of Michigan scientist who researches genes related to diabetes, used to feel like an impostor in a laboratory. Tovar, 32, grew up poor and was the first in her family to graduate from high school. During her first year in college, she realized she didn't know how to study.

29 Apr 2025

Moms in crisis, jobs lost: The human cost of Trump’s addiction funding cuts

When the Trump administration cut more than $11 billion in covid-era funds to states in late March, addiction recovery programs suffered swift losses.

25 Apr 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Can Congress reconcile Trump’s wishes with Medicaid’s needs?

Congress returns from spring break next week and will get to work crafting a bill that would cut taxes and boost immigration enforcement — but that also could cut at least $880 billion over the next decade from a pool of funding that includes Medicaid.

24 Apr 2025