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KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Federal health work in flux

Two months into the new administration, federal workers and contractors remain off-balance as the Trump administration ramps up its efforts to cancel jobs and programs — even as federal judges declare many of those efforts illegal and/or unconstitutional.

20 Mar 2025

Cyanotic congenital heart disease incidence increases in states with restrictive abortion laws

The incidence of babies born with serious heart defects, known as cyanotic congenital heart disease (CCHD), rose in states that enacted restrictive abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that put abortion laws in the hands of the states, according to a study being presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session.

18 Mar 2025

Progressives seek health privacy protections in California, but Newsom could balk

When patients walked into Planned Parenthood clinics, a consumer data company sold their precise locations to anti-abortion groups for targeted ads.

14 Mar 2025

WHO study sheds light on global maternal mortality crisis

Hemorrhage – severe heavy bleeding – and hypertensive disorders like preeclampsia are the leading causes of maternal deaths globally, according to a new study released today by the World Health Organization (WHO).

9 Mar 2025

Marty Makary, often wrong as pandemic critic, is poised to lead the FDA he railed against

Panelists at a covid conference last fall were asked to voice their regrets — policies they had supported during the pandemic but had come to see as misguided. Covid contact tracing, one said. Closing schools, another said. Vaccine mandates, a third said.

7 Mar 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': The state of federal health agencies is uncertain

Can the Trump administration refuse to spend money appropriated through Congress by firing federal workers and canceling existing contracts? And if the courts say it cannot, will the administration obey those directives? That key confrontation crept closer this week as the Supreme Court weighed in, suggesting the federal government could not refuse to pay for services already provided.

6 Mar 2025

Trump froze out project 2025 in his campaign. Now its blueprint is his health care playbook.

Few voters likely expected President Donald Trump in the first weeks of his administration to slash billions of dollars from the nation's premier federal cancer research agency.

24 Feb 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Medicaid in the crosshairs, maybe

The future of the Medicaid health insurance program for those with low incomes is in doubt, as Congress works on a budget plan calling for major cuts while President Donald Trump both promises to support that plan as well as to protect the program.

20 Feb 2025

Republican states claim zero abortions. A red-state doctor calls that ‘ludicrous.’

In Arkansas, state health officials announced a stunning statistic for 2023: The total number of abortions in the state, where some 1.5 million women live, was zero.

13 Feb 2025

Survey shows increased use of fertility apps after Dobbs decision

The use of fertility-tracking technology increased in some states after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade despite warnings that reproduction-related data might not be secure, a new study has found.

10 Feb 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Chaos continues in federal health system

Confusion continues to reign at the Department of Health and Human Services, where policies seem to be changing at a breakneck pace even before a new secretary or other senior officials are confirmed by the Senate.

6 Feb 2025

New drug delivery system shows promise for treating choriocarcinoma

A new drug delivery system shows promise for treating a rare, aggressive form of cancer affecting pregnant women and new mothers, and it has potential with other cancers as well.

6 Feb 2025

Trump’s already gone back on his promise to leave abortion to states

Abortion foes worried before his election that President Donald Trump had moved on, now that Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion policy, as he said on the campaign trail, "has been returned to the states."

5 Feb 2025

What RFK Jr. might face in his nomination hearings this week

President Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer with no formal medical or public health expertise, as secretary of Health and Human Sciences.

28 Jan 2025

What a US exit from the WHO means for global health

For decades, the United States has held considerable power in determining the direction of global health policies and programs.

24 Jan 2025

The growing inequality in life expectancy among Americans

The life expectancy among Native Americans in the western United States has dropped below 64 years, close to life expectancies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti.

22 Jan 2025

New California laws target medical debt, AI care decisions, detention centers

As the nation braces for potential policy shifts under President-elect Donald Trump's "Make America Healthy Again" mantra, the nation's most populous state and largest health care market is preparing for a few changes of its own.

16 Jan 2025

Study reveals decline in hormonal contraceptive use and increase in fertility awareness methods

There has been a shift away from the use of more reliable hormonal methods of contraception to less reliable fertility awareness methods among women requesting abortion in England and Wales over the past 5 years, reveals research published online in the journal BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health.

13 Jan 2025

Long distances to abortion facilities drive telehealth medication use

The distance between a patient's home and an abortion-services facility where they would seek care significantly influences how they receive birth-control medications, according to a study published Jan. 8 in the American Journal of Public Health.

9 Jan 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': New Year, new Congress, new health agenda

The new, GOP-led, 119th Congress and President-elect Donald Trump have big legislative plans for the year — which mostly don't include health policy. But health is likely to play an important supporting role in efforts to renew tax cuts, revise immigration policies, and alter trade — if only to help pay for some Republican initiatives.

9 Jan 2025