News
Collaborating with KFF Health News with focus on Medicaid, Medicare, Rural & Public Health
-
Tracking State Rural Health Transformation Plans New
Posted on August 06, 2026
The five-year, $50 billion Rural Health Transformation program was created as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to expand access to healthcare. States competed to win funding with first-year allocations ranging from $147 million for New Jersey to $281 million for Texas. Find links to available public documents for each state below.
-
The Newest Federally Recognized Tribe Wants Better Healthcare. It May Be On Its Own. New
Posted on July 31, 2026
LUMBERTON, N.C. — Soybean fields surround Angie Lowery’s home in Robeson County, on a plot of rural land in southeastern North Carolina. Dozens of antique gas station signs, 20 feet tall, dominate her front yard. A framed re-creation of The Last Supper, Lone Ranger posters, and a 3-foot-wide tobacco harvesting basket adorn the walls of her home. A collector, Lowery over the years has amassed remnants of her region’s past.
-
Medicaid Insurers’ Contracts on the Line in Tight Governor’s Race New
Posted on July 30, 2026
One of America’s most competitive gubernatorial races could settle a heated argument over whether private insurance companies should run Medicaid.
The race is in Iowa, whose Medicaid program has been plagued with controversy since 2016, when the state hired national insurance companies to manage billions of dollars’ worth of benefits.
That shift was made by then-Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican. With his executive order, Iowa joined most other states in privatizing the management of Medicaid, which covers healthcare for more than 67 million Americans with low incomes or disabilities.
-
CMS’s Decision to End Temporary Subsidies to Medicare’s Stand-Alone Drug Plans Could Mean Larger Premium Increases for Some Beneficiaries Next Year New
Posted on July 29, 2026
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced plans to end the temporary Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration after 2026. The goal of the demonstration, which CMS originally stated could last for at least three years when it was established in 2024, was designed to stabilize stand-alone prescription drug plan (PDP) premiums and enrollment amid the rollout of changes to the Part D benefit under the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA capped out-of-pocket drug spending for Part D enrollees and shifted more costs onto Part D plan sponsors, leading to higher expected costs and premiums, particularly for PDPs. Based on its evaluation of bids for 2027, CMS now states that PDP sponsors have gained “sufficient experience” to support bid development, suggesting that the extra financial support provided to PDP sponsors under the demonstration is no longer needed.
-
KFF Health Tracking Poll: Ebola & Pandemic Preparedness New
Posted on July 28, 2026
Findings
In May, authorities confirmed an Ebola outbreak centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has since grown to become the third largest Ebola outbreak on record, causing more than 2,000 cases and 750 deaths as of July. The State Department has announced the U.S. would provide “$270 million in direct Ebola response funding” and other support to assist the international response. This response from the Trump administration, however, comes amid a changed global and domestic health landscape, marked by reduced U.S. foreign aid funding and the dissolution of USAID, as well as cuts to domestic public health programs.
-
New KFF Poll Shows Public Divided When It Comes to Trusting Federal Health Agencies for Reliable Information
Posted on July 23, 2026
Highlights
KFF’s latest Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust finds that following large declines in trust in federal health agencies from 2020 through early 2026, trust in the CDC as a source of health information held steady over the last 6 months, while trust in both President Trump and state government officials declined somewhat. These findings, including levels of trust in sources of health information broken out by key demographic groups, can also be found on KFF’s interactive Health Information and Trust Polling Dashboard.
-
Admin’s Personnel Agency Says It Will Remove Some Identifying Info as It Sweeps Up Medical Records
Posted on July 22, 2026
The Trump administration is forging ahead with a controversial plan to collect the medical records of millions of federal workers and retirees, as well as their family members.
The Office of Personnel Management said in a notice posted last month that it will begin routinely collecting identifiable, personal health information on more than 8 million people — despite concerns from privacy advocates and Democrats, who have demanded the agency drop the plan. The notice will go into effect July 24, allowing OPM to begin its collection at any point afterward.
-
A Deloitte-Run System Denied Medicaid Benefits for Michigan’s Disabled. Now Trump’s Law Piles On.
Posted on July 21, 2026
Marie Noon takes eight medications a day. One keeps her heart rate from spiking to avoid a stroke. One prevents debilitating headaches. Another ensures she doesn’t retain excess fluid.
More than a decade ago, Noon said, she was diagnosed with adult-onset Still’s disease, a rare type of inflammatory arthritis that can cause rashes, debilitating pain, and fevers. The disease upended her life.
-
Pregnant Woman’s Roadside Death Triggers Push To Reopen Mississippi Delta Hospital
Posted on July 20, 2026
BELZONI, Miss. — Harmony Ball-Stribling’s path to pregnancy had been turbulent, from an endometriosis diagnosis to an arduous in vitro fertilization process and sky-high blood pressure. But as her due date approached in the summer of 2021, her health improved and those storm clouds seemed to scatter.
“It was just too perfect,” said her mother, Shenelle Ball-Green, of those calm, hot weeks.
-
Doctors ‘Cringe’ at Possibility of Documenting Which Medicaid Enrollees Too Sick To Work
Posted on July 20, 2026
Alice Thornton has spent more than two decades treating people living with HIV in Lexington, Kentucky.
Her team tends to “cringe” anytime they hear about patients having to fill out lots of paperwork, like when applying for Social Security Disability payments, because it can be a difficult, burdensome process.