First Edition: Friday, Feb. 20, 2026

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: When It Comes To Health Insurance, Federal Dollars Support More Than ACA Plans
Subsidies. Love ’em or hate them, they dominated the news during the Affordable Care Act’s sign-up season, and their reduction is now hitting many enrollees in the pocketbook. While lawmakers continue to disagree on a way forward, and the politics of affordability keeps the issue front and center, it would be understandable to think these are the only taxpayer-funded health insurance subsidies in the U.S. system. But that would be wrong. (Appleby, 2/20)

KFF Health News: Should Drug Companies Be Advertising To Consumers?
Tamar Abrams had a lousy couple of years in 2022 and ’23. Both her parents died; a relationship ended; she retired from communications consulting. She moved from Arlington, Virginia, to Warren, Rhode Island, where she knew all of two people. “I was kind of a mess,” recalled Abrams, 69. Trying to cope, “I was eating myself into oblivion.” As her weight hit 270 pounds and her blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose levels climbed, “I knew I was in trouble health-wise.” (Span, 2/20)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Turnarounds And Shake-Ups
The midterm elections are months away, yet changes at the Department of Health and Human Services suggest the Trump administration is focusing on how to win on health care, which remains a top concern for voters. Facing growing concern about the administration’s actions on vaccines in particular, the Food and Drug Administration this week reversed course and said it would review a new mRNA-based flu vaccine after all. (Carey, 2/19)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The Washington Post: U.S. Considers Building Pricey Alternative To World Health Organization
After pulling out of the World Health Organization, the Trump administration is proposing spending $2 billion a year to replicate the global disease surveillance and outbreak functions the United States once helped build and accessed at a fraction of the cost, according to three administration officials briefed on the proposal. The effort to build a U.S.-run alternative would re-create systems such as laboratories, data-sharing networks and rapid-response systems the U.S. abandoned when it announced its withdrawal from the WHO last year and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. (Sun and Bogage, 2/19)

CNBC: Kennedy Defends Trump Glyphosate Order; MAHA Erupts
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended President Donald Trump’s executive order spurring the domestic production of the weed killer glyphosate, as his Make America Healthy Again movement reels from the president’s embrace of the chemical they despise. (Downs, 2/19)

AP: Trump's Climate Health Rollback Likely Will Hit Vulnerable Communities The Most, Experts Say
In a stretch of Louisiana with about 170 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, premature death is a fact of life for people living nearby. The air is so polluted and the cancer rates so high it is known as Cancer Alley. “Most adults in the area are attending two to three funerals per month,” said Gary C. Watson Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, a majority Black community in Cancer Alley about 30 miles outside of New Orleans. His father survived cancer, but in recent years, at least five relatives have died from it. (Pineda and Borenstein, 2/20)

NOTUS: FEMA Still Hasn’t Reimbursed Hospitals For COVID-19 Work
In late January, U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-NY, chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, inquired about the status of more than $1 billion that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had still not paid to New York health systems for COVID-19 expenses dating back to 2020. Garbarino told NOTUS he is “still working with” the agency to obtain the documentation he requested in January to investigate the situation. The money still hasn’t been disbursed. (Banks, 2/19)

CDC

CNN: CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee Meeting Canceled For Next Week 
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory committee is not going to meet next week as planned, according to a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services, saying, “Further information will be shared as available.” (Tirrell and Christensen, 2/19)

FDA

Stat: FDA's HØEg Plans To Scrutinize SSRIs, RSV Shots For Babies 
Tracy Beth Høeg, the top drug regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, indicated in her first address to staff that she’ll scrutinize antidepressants and the shots used to protect babies from RSV. (Lawrence, 2/19)

Stat: FDA Taps AI Executive To Lead Digital Health Center 
The Food and Drug Administration has tapped a former executive from a health artificial intelligence company to lead its digital health center. (Aguilar and Lawrence, 2/19)

IMMIGRATION CRISIS

The New York Times: Police Investigate ICE Arrest Of A Man Who Suffered Severe Head Injuries 
The police in St. Paul, Minn., say they are investigating an immigration arrest last month that left a man with a fractured skull and bleeding in his brain. Immigration agents have claimed the injuries were a result of the man running into a wall, but he has said that the agents beat him. (Bogel-Burroughs, 2/19)

The Texas Tribune: What You Need To Know About Texas ICE Detention Deaths
The 911 call reported an apparent suicide. A 55-year-old Cuban “tried to hang himself,” a federal contractor alerted emergency responders last month from a sprawling El Paso immigrant detention center. By the next day, records show that Geraldo Lunas Campos had died at the facility, marking the second fatality in weeks at the hastily constructed Fort Bliss Army tent structure known as Camp East Montana. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials attributed his death to “medical distress.” (Kriel and Deguzman, 2/19)

The 19th: ICE Keeps Using Tear Gas Near Children. What Does It Mean For Their Health?
From the roof of the ​​Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland, Oregon, federal agents late last month watched as thousands of people marched past the processing center in protest. Families and children were among the daytime crowd, which had gathered for an event advertised as family friendly. (Rodriguez, 2/19)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

ABC News: Texas Court To Hear Appeal In Case Of Midwife Accused Of Violating State Abortion Ban
A Texas appeals court will hear arguments on Thursday in a civil lawsuit brought against a woman accused by the state of illegally providing abortions in the Houston area. Maria Margarita Rojas allegedly provided abortions in violation of the state's abortion ban and was practicing medicine without a license at a network of clinics in northwestern Houston, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. (Kekatos, 2/19)

The Nevada Independent: ‘I Lost A Lot Of Hope’: Nevada Pays $100K To Woman Convicted For Miscarriage Under 1911 Law
Nevada’s ban on taking drugs to end a pregnancy after the 24th week makes it the only state left in the nation that explicitly criminalizes abortions, advocates say, and legislative efforts last year to change that fell flat. Patience Rousseau was the only person ever charged and convicted under the law, according to Laura FitzSimmons, a Carson City-based lawyer who has represented her since 2020. FitzSimmons helped get Rousseau’s conviction vacated in 2021 for ineffective assistance of counsel. (Reynolds, 2/19)

TRANSGENDER CARE

CBS News: DOJ Investigating 3 Michigan School Districts Over Sexual Orientation And Gender Ideology Instruction
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a new investigation into three Michigan school districts to determine if they have added "sexual orientation and gender ideology" content in any of their classes without giving parents the option to opt their kids out. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillion sent letters to superintendents at the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools and Lansing School District, saying the DOJ will determine if the districts violated Title IX. (Rojas-Castillo, 2/19)

The New York Times: Their Transgender Child’s Health Care Had Ended. What Now? 
In phone call after call, doctors and nurses from NYU Langone Health delivered the news to the parents: The hospital was no longer providing gender-related care to transgender adolescents. That meant no more prescriptions for hormones or for puberty blockers. Their children needed to find new doctors. (Goldstein, 2/19)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Stat: National Provider Directory Set To Launch This Year With Beta Test 
After years of grand ambitions, the federal government disclosed that it is months away from rolling out a centralized list of doctors and hospitals filled with up-to-date contact and insurance information. (Herman, 2/19)

ProPublica: EmblemHealth Agrees To $2.5 Million Settlement For Failing To Fix Mental Health Provider Directory Errors
One of New York’s largest health insurers is set to pay a multimillion-dollar fine for failing to fix a series of errors that made it harder for its customers to get mental health care. EmblemHealth this week agreed to a $2.5 million settlement with the New York attorney general’s office because of the large number of inaccuracies in its listings of in-network mental health providers, a problem that has persisted for years. (Blau, 2/19)

MedPage Today: United Healthcare Reins In Access To Specialty Care In Medicare Advantage
Starting May 1, enrollees in UnitedHealthcare health maintenance organization (HMO) or HMO-point of service Medicare Advantage plans nationwide must get a primary care provider's referral before seeing a wide array of specialists, which several health advocates say will lead to confusion and care delays for millions of seniors. UnitedHealthcare, the nation's largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, warned that specialty care without a referral wouldn't be reimbursed and that physicians would be on the hook for absorbing the enrollees' cost of specialty care. (Clark, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: Change Healthcare Breach: The Cyberattack’s Impact 2 Years Later
It’s been two years since a cyberattack against Change Healthcare roiled healthcare, exposing data on 190 million consumers and demonstrating the vulnerabilities of an industry so reliant on one vendor. The Feb. 21, 2024, attack by ransomware group BlackCat forced UnitedHealth Group, Change Healthcare’s parent company, to disable functions including claims processing, prescription management, payment, prior authorization and insurance verification. Chaos ensued as critical functions ground to a halt. (DeSilva, 2/19)

St. Louis Public Radio: Hospital Re-Opens In North St. Louis As Archview Hospital 
A new microhospital is now open in north St. Louis at the site of another that shut down abruptly in 2024. Archview ER and Hospital began taking patients in December at the former Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital location on North Jefferson Avenue. Officials there say they’re in the process of getting approval to accept Medicaid and Medicare insurance. (Fentem, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: Community Health Systems Earnings Boosted By Hospital Sales
Community Health Systems isn’t quite finished with its recent selling push. The Franklin, Tennessee-based health system reported a positive swing in its financial results in 2025, largely due to divestitures and other efficiency initiatives. The company is in early discussions regarding a couple of other sales transactions, CEO Kevin Hammons said on a Thursday fourth-quarter earnings call. (Hudson, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: St. Jude CEO James Downing To Step Down
Dr. James Downing will step down this year as president and CEO of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the nonprofit hospital announced Thursday. Downing, who has led the hospital for more than 12 years, will move into a faculty role in its global pediatric medicine department. The St. Jude board plans to announce his successor this summer and complete the leadership transition by the end of the year. (Kacik, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: Banner Health Upgrades Intuitive Surgical Robots To Da Vinci 5
Banner Health upgraded its entire fleet of Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci Xi surgical robots to the company’s new da Vinci 5 model. Leaders said the organization is seeking to advance and standardize its robotic capabilities, thereby reducing variation and supporting best practices. The Phoenix-headquartered health system did not disclose how many robots were part of the upgrade or the cost of the investment. It has a total of 49 da Vinci 5 robots, including newly upgraded units and existing ones. (Dubinsky, 2/19)

PHARMA AND TECH

Stat: Key Study Of Grail’s Cancer Detection Test Fails In Setback For Company 
A blood test for detecting cancer early being developed by the diagnostics firm Grail failed to meet its main goal in a giant study being conducted with England’s National Health Service, the company said Thursday. (Herper and Chen, 2/19)

Stat: Texas AG Sues Sanofi For Allegedly Providing Kickbacks To Doctors 
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed a lawsuit accusing Sanofi of providing kickbacks to doctors, in the form of a free network of nurses and insurance support services, to boost prescriptions of its medicines. (Silverman, 2/19)

Bloomberg: Pfizer Ponders Viagra Lessons To Chart First Obesity Drug Launch
Pfizer Inc. is drawing on lessons learned years ago from rolling out Viagra as it maps out the launch of its first obesity medicine. The parallels between weight loss and erectile dysfunction — two sensitive health topics influenced by social perceptions — are among the factors helping to inform the US drugmaker as it considers how best to introduce the monthly injection just gained from its acquisition of Metsera Inc., according to Alexandre de Germay, Pfizer’s chief international commercial officer. (Furlong, 2/19)

NPR: Could Saliva Tests Become The Future Of Diagnosis?
The saliva circulating in your mouth contains troves of microbial information about the rest of your body and is easier to collect than blood samples. Today, a few drops of spit can help detect viruses like HIV and the one that causes COVID-19, or assess genetic risks for breast cancer. Within a few years, experts say, similar tests might be available to diagnose other diseases, such as diabetes or prostate cancer. (Noguchi, 2/20)

STATE WATCH

AP: Wisconsin Passes Expanded Medicaid For Moms
Women in Wisconsin will soon be eligible to receive expanded Medicaid coverage for up to a year after giving birth following near-unanimous passage of a measure Thursday by the Wisconsin Assembly that would leave Arkansas as the only state yet to expand such benefits. Wisconsin Democrats, and even most Republicans, have pushed for years to expand Medicaid coverage for new mothers, only to be blocked by powerful Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Vos had argued that he opposed expanding welfare programs, but he relented late Wednesday. (Bauer, 2/19)

New Hampshire Bulletin: NH House Votes Down Anti-Vaccine Bill 
The New Hampshire House of Representatives rejected a proposal Thursday to end all vaccine mandates in the state. “New Hampshire has the lowest vaccination rate for measles in New England,” Rep. Jessica LaMontagne, a Dover Democrat, said in a floor speech before the vote. “Do you want to be the legislature that ushers in the next outbreak of measles?” (Skipworth, 2/19)

AP: Judge Orders Takeover Of Health Care In Arizona Prisons
A federal judge has ordered a takeover of health care operations in Arizona’s prisons and will appoint an official to run the system after years of complaints about poor medical and mental health care. The decision on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver came after her 2022 verdict that concluded Arizona had violated prisoners’ rights by providing inadequate care that led to suffering and preventable deaths. (Billeaud, 2/20)

CalMatters: California Prisons Have Life-Saving Addiction Treatment. Doctors Say Parole Board Is Undermining It
California’s parole board is using unreliable drug test results in decisions about releasing incarcerated people despite flaws that were exposed in a rash of false positives two years ago, more than a dozen state prison doctors and state-appointed attorneys say. As a result of the practice, which conflicts with policies governing prison health care, more and more incarcerated people are walking away from life-saving addiction treatment over fears that a false positive could cost them their freedom. (Mihalovich, 2/19)

Honolulu Civil Beat: Mistaken Identity Case At Hawaii State Hospital May Cost State $200K
A bizarre case of mistaken identity that landed a then-homeless man in jail and later caused him to be confined in Hawaiʻi State Hospital for more than two years will cost the state $200,000 under a proposed legal settlement. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Joshua Spriestersbach, 54, alleges he told his lawyers with the state Office of the Public Defender time and again he was not the man named in the warrant that prompted his arrest on May 11, 2017 — to no avail. (Dayton, 2/19)

AP: Suspect Pours Accelerant On Stolen Ambulance In Idaho, Flees Scene
Authorities in Idaho were searching Thursday for a suspect who they said stole an ambulance outside a hospital, poured an accelerant over it and drove it into a nearby building that houses U.S. Department of Homeland Security offices. Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea didn’t identify the substance poured on the inside and outside of the ambulance. “It appears the suspect was unable to ignite the accelerant before being scared off by responding agencies,” he said in a statement. The incident occurred at about 11:10 p.m. Wednesday in the Boise suburb of Meridian, police said. (McAvoy and Boone, 2/20)

Iowa Capital Dispatch: University Of Iowa Researchers Create Tools For Cancer Tracking In Different States 
As Iowa officials drill down on their fight to understand and address high cancer rates in the state, a mapping tool developed by University of Iowa researchers is informing their and other states’ work — and the network is set to keep growing. (Draisey, 2/19)

Stat: As NIH Funding Shifts, States Test A New Research Model 
On paper, little appears to have changed for UMass Chan Medical School over the past year, despite the cascade of paused and terminated grants and swift, unpredictable policy shifts that followed President Trump’s return to office. The amount of bread-and-butter RO1 awards it received from the National Institutes of Health in the 2025 fiscal year dropped only 1.6% from 2024. (Oza, 2/20)

CBS News: Los Angeles County Confirms Fourth Measles Case Of The Year In LAX Traveler
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has confirmed the fourth case of measles this year in an international traveler who recently visited LAX Airport. The department made the announcement on Thursday, saying the person had recently visited LAX and several other LA County locations while infectious. So far, all of the LA County cases have been tied to international travel, according to public health officials. (Hylton, 2/19)

CIDRAP: Utah’s Measles Outbreak Reaches 300 Cases
Utah has confirmed 300 measles cases in an ongoing outbreak, with the virus now spreading in Salt Lake County and new exposures at high schools in that county, according to an update yesterday from the Salt Lake County Health Department (SLCoHD). “The first measles symptoms are often cold- or flu-like, with cough, runny nose, red/watery eyes, and fever, so you may think you have a common respiratory illness and can continue engaging in normal activities,” said Dorothy Adams, executive director of SLCoHD. “But please stay home if you have any signs of illness, especially now that we know measles is actively circulating in our community.” (Soucheray, 2/19)

Verite News: Toxic Tap: Lead Detected In 6 Of 10 New Orleans Homes' Water
Each morning, Katherine Prevost fills her coffee maker with water from her kitchen faucet and presses the button. Until recently, she didn’t know the water may have contained a potent neurotoxin — lead. She was shocked when a water test provided by Verite News found lead detected in the water coming from the tap. “Now that means that I can’t do that anymore,” Prevost said. She already drank bottled water, but she relied on tap water for cooking everything from her gumbos and crawfish boils and other daily activities like brushing her teeth. (Parker, 2/19)

SUBSTANCE USE

Stat: Nicotine Makes Surprise Comeback As A Wellness, Productivity Tool 
Biohackers like it. Athletes and Joe Rogan do, too. Stanford neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman says it “sharpens the mind.” On social media, health and wellness influencers explain how they use it for a pre-workout boost or as part of their “stacks.” (Todd, 2/20)

Axios: The Overdose Crisis Is Shrinking — And Mutating
Overdose deaths are falling, but America's illicit drug supply is re-engineering itself into lethal cocktails: fentanyl plus stimulants, sedatives, and novel synthetics that hide in party powders and pressed pills. (Contreras, 2/20)

CELEBRITIES AND POP CULTURE

The New York Times: Eric Dane, McSteamy On ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ Dies At 53 After Battling ALS
Eric Dane, the actor best known as the charming plastic surgeon nicknamed McSteamy on the wildly successful ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” has died. He was 53. His death was confirmed by his publicist Melissa Bank. He had been treated for A.L.S., a neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which breaks down a patient’s ability to control muscles, speak and eventually breathe without assistance. (Diaz, 2/19)