Medicare News and Research

RSS

Wyoming wants to make its five-year federal rural health funding last ‘forever’

Wyoming officials say they have a plan to make five years of upcoming grants from a new $50 billion federal rural health program last "forever."

18 Feb 2026

Red and blue states alike want to limit AI in insurance. Trump wants to limit the states.

It's the rare policy question that unites Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and the Democratic-led Maryland government against President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California: How should health insurers use AI?

18 Feb 2026

Air pollution linked to higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease

People with greater exposure to air pollution face a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study by Yanling Deng of Emory University, U.S.A., and colleagues, published February 17th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine.

17 Feb 2026

Trump required hospitals to post their prices for patients. Mostly it’s the industry using the data.

Republicans think patients should be shopping for better health care prices. The party has long pushed to give patients money and let consumers do the work of reducing costs.

17 Feb 2026

Trump team’s planned ACA rule offers its answer to rising premium costs: Catastrophic coverage

The Trump administration has unveiled a sweeping set of regulatory proposals that would substantially change health plan offerings on the Affordable Care Act marketplace next year, aiming, it says, to provide more choice and lower premiums.

13 Feb 2026

Clinics sour on CMS after agency scraps 10-year primary care program only months in

On a 15-degree morning in January, a clinic in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina began to fill up with patients.

13 Feb 2026

Alabama’s ‘pretty cool’ plan for robots in maternity care sparks debate

It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, but Alabama officials' plan to use robots to improve care for rural pregnant women and their babies is real.

12 Feb 2026

Rural cancer patients benefit from local surgical care

Adults living in rural communities often travel long distances when seeking treatment for cancer, but distant travel may not always be necessary to receive high-quality surgical care, according to a new analysis published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS).

11 Feb 2026

New Medicaid work rules likely to hit middle-aged adults hard

Lori Kelley's deteriorating vision has made it hard for her to find steady work.

11 Feb 2026

Safety perceptions of major vaccines show significant drop over the past three years

In a winter marked by flu outbreaks, the persistence of Covid-19, and surges of measles cases across the United States, an Annenberg survey finds that a sizable majority of Americans think the three vaccines that combat these potentially deadly illnesses are safe to take, although perceptions of the safety of all three vaccines showed a statistically significant drop over the past three years.

10 Feb 2026

Three PBMs dominate retail prescriptions in Medicare Part D and Medicaid markets

Just three pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) dominate retail prescriptions in Medicare Part D and Medicaid managed care across much of the country, with markets in in nearly every state considered highly concentrated for at least one program, according to a new study from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

10 Feb 2026

Medicare's three-day rule: Longer hospital stays, no patient benefit

A long-standing Medicare policy meant to manage rehabilitation services in nursing homes may keep older Americans in hospitals longer than necessary without improving patient health or saving Medicare money, new research finds.

9 Feb 2026

Cognitive speed training shows potential to delay dementia for two decades

Adults age 65 and older who completed five to six weeks of cognitive speed training - in this case, speed of processing training, which helps people quickly find visual information on a computer screen and handle increasingly complex tasks in a shorter time period - and who had follow-up sessions about one to three years later were less likely to be diagnosed with dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, up to two decades later, according to new findings published today in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.

9 Feb 2026

Dementia collaborative care delivers greater value than Alzheimer’s medication

Programs that match caregivers with patient navigators yield better outcomes than Alzheimer's drug – but combining the two may be best.

6 Feb 2026

With ICE using Medicaid data, hospitals and states are in a bind over warning immigrant patients

The Trump administration's move to give deportation officials access to Medicaid data is putting hospitals and states in a bind as they weigh whether to alert immigrant patients that their personal information, including home addresses, could be used in efforts to remove them from the country.

6 Feb 2026

Newsom walks thin line on immigrant health as he eyes presidential bid

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is eyeing a presidential bid, has incensed both Democrats and Republicans over immigrant health care in his home state, underscoring the delicate political path ahead.

5 Feb 2026

Most commercially insured patients live with chronic conditions

The majority (57.5 percent) of commercially insured patients had at least one chronic condition in 2024. The average allowed amount for a patient with no chronic conditions was $1,590, while the average allowed amount for a patient with one chronic condition was nearly double ($3,039).

2 Feb 2026

When health insurance costs more than the mortgage

When Noah Hulsman, who owns a skate shop in Louisville, Kentucky, learned he no longer qualified for federal subsidies to help him pay for his "gold" Affordable Care Act health plan, the 37-year-old opted for skimpier coverage. But the deductible is about a quarter of his yearly income.

2 Feb 2026

Simpler hemiarch surgery effective for older aortic dissection patients

Ascending aortic hemiarch reconstruction offers the same long-term benefits to patients over age 65 with acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) as more complex extended arch reconstruction procedures, according to a study presented today at the 2026 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting.

1 Feb 2026

Age shapes long-term outcomes after multi-arterial CABG strategies

A late-breaking study drawing on more than 15 years of national outcomes data from the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD) suggests that the two most commonly used multi-arterial coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) strategies-bilateral internal thoracic artery (BITA) and single internal thoracic artery plus radial artery (SITA+RA)-offer comparable long-term survival overall, with important differences emerging by patient age.

31 Jan 2026