What the Health? From KFF Health News

With lawmakers still mired over renewing enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act plans, much of Washington has turned its attention to culture war issues, including abortion and gender-affirming care.  Meanwhile, “confusion” remains the watchword at the Department of Health and Human Services as personnel and funding decisions continue to be made and unmade with little notice.  Alice Miranda...

Congress returned from its holiday break facing a familiar question: whether to extend the expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans that expired at the end of 2025.   Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke a promise to Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the chairman of Senate health committee, by overhauling the federal government’s childhood vaccine schedule...

This past year marked the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, the twin government programs that have shaped the health care system into what it is today. In this special episode, re-aired for the holidays, KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner interviews two experts on the history, significance, and future of these perennially popular programs. First up, Medicare historian and University of North C...

A last-minute push from Democrats and four moderate Republicans will force a House vote on renewing enhanced premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act plans, but not until January. That means millions will have to choose between paying dramatically more or dropping coverage next year.  Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially drops the federal recommendation for newbo...

December 15 is the deadline to sign up for Affordable Care Act plans that begin January 1. Congress remains at odds over letting expanded tax credits for the plans’ premiums expire, dramatically increasing the cost of insurance for millions of Americans.  Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to remake vaccine policy to reflect ideology rather than science....

Senate Democrats were promised a vote by mid-December on extending the enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, but Republicans still can’t decide whether they want to put forward their own alternative or what that might include.  Meanwhile, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are roiled by debates over vaccines.  Alice Miranda Ollstein o...

Just weeks before some tax credits for Affordable Care Act premiums expire, the Trump administration floated a plan to extend the enhanced aid — but it was met with immediate GOP pushback. Meanwhile, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to revise its website to suggest childhood vaccines might be linked to autism.  Alice Miranda Olls...

Led by President Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress are solidifying their opposition to extending pandemic-era subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans and seem to be coalescing around giving money directly to consumers to spend on health care.  Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to leave his mark on the agency, with the Centers for Disease Control and...

The record-long federal shutdown is over after a small group of Democrats agreed to a deal with most Republicans that funds the government through January — but, notably, does not extend more generous Affordable Care Act tax credits.  Plus, new details are emerging about how the Trump administration is using the Medicaid program to advance its policy goals.   Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Shefali...

November 1 marked the start of open enrollment for 2026 health plans bought from Affordable Care Act marketplaces in most states. But this sign-up season is like no other in the health law’s 15-year history. It remains unclear, even at this late date, whether expanded tax credits launched during the pandemic in 2021 will be continued or allowed to expire, exposing millions of Americans to much hig...

A standoff in Congress is keeping much of the federal government shut down as open enrollment begins in most states for Affordable Care Act plans. Democrats have refused to vote on spending until Republicans agree to extend more generous ACA premium tax credits, but so far there has been little negotiating — even as customers are learning what they’ll pay for coverage next year. Meanwhile, the Tru...

Two major nutrition programs — supporting low-income families, as well as young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women — are likely to exhaust their funding in November, and the furloughs and firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have left the agency unable to perform some of its major functions. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s new policy on in vitro fertilization is...

Democrats and Republicans remain stalled over funding the federal government as Republicans launch a new attack on the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is taking advantage of the shutdown to lay off workers from programs supported mostly by Democrats.  Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School o...

The government shutdown continues with no obvious end in sight, and while it theoretically should not affect entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the lapse of some related authorizations — like for Medicare telehealth programs — is leaving some doctors and patients high and dry. Meanwhile, the FDA quietly approved a new generic abortion pill, prompting a not-so-quiet reaction from anti...

As long predicted, much of the federal government shut down Oct. 1 after Congress failed to pass required spending bills, with Democrats demanding Republicans renew the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies in exchange for votes. While a shutdown does not affect Medicare and Medicaid, it could eventually hinder activities from every corner of the Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile...

In a rambling news conference that shocked public health experts, President Donald Trump this week — without scientific evidence — blamed the over-the-counter drug acetaminophen, and too many childhood vaccines, for the increase in autism diagnoses in the U.S. That came days after a key immunization advisory committee, newly reconstituted with vaccine doubters, changed several long-standing recomm...

The recently fired head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told senators that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered her to fire top officials and agree to approve changes to national vaccine recommendations — before the recommendations were made and regardless of what the science says. Meanwhile, Congress heads toward a government shutdown, with expanded subsidies for Affor...

With less than three weeks to go before the deadline to pass legislation to keep the federal government running, lawmakers are still far apart on a strategy. Democrats hope Republicans agree to extend expanded tax credits for the Affordable Care Act as part of a compromise, but so far Republicans are not negotiating. Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released his...

A combative Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the U.S. secretary of health and human services, appeared before a Senate committee Thursday, defending his firing of the newly confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as other changes that could limit the availability of vaccines. Meanwhile, Congress has only a few weeks to complete work on annual spending bills to avoid a pos...

This summer marks the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, the twin government programs that have shaped the health care system into what it is today. In this special episode, KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner interviews two experts on the history, significance, and future of these perennially popular programs. First up, Medicare historian and University of North Carolina professor Jonathan Ober...

President Donald Trump’s latest executive order about science and medicine seeks to take funding decisions out of the hands of career scientists and give them to political appointees instead. And a gunman, reportedly disgruntled over covid vaccines, shoots at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killing a law enforcement officer. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, S...

The Health and Human Services secretary is winding down nearly $500 million in mRNA research funding, citing false claims that the technology is ineffective against respiratory illnesses — and notching a victory for critics of the covid vaccines. And President Donald Trump is demanding drugmakers drop their prices, quickly, but it’s unclear how he could make them comply. Lauren Weber of The Washin...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, is eyeing an overhaul of two more key entities as part of his ongoing effort to reshape health policy. And President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week that would enable localities to force some homeless people into residential treatment. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School...

Medicaid may have monopolized Washington’s attention lately, but big changes are coming to the Affordable Care Act as well. Meanwhile, Americans are learning more about what’s in the big budget bill President Donald Trump signed into law this month, and polls suggest many of them don’t like what they see. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, and Julie Appleby of KFF...

The Senate narrowly approved the Trump administration’s request to claw back about $9 billion for humanitarian foreign aid projects and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — but refused to cut funding for the international AIDS/HIV program PEPFAR. The House has a Friday deadline to approve the rescissions bill, or the funding remains in place. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court ruled that West...