First Edition: Friday, March 27, 2026

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Trump Team Claims Successes Against ACA Fraud While Pushing For More Controls
Complaints about enrollment fraud in Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage have bedeviled the federal marketplace for years. Now, the Trump administration is claiming wins in reducing the problem while simultaneously saying more controls are needed. It has proposed a sweeping set of ACA regulations for next year, including stepped-up requirements for some applicants to prove eligibility for subsidies or enrollment and new scrutiny of sales agents and marketing practices. (Appleby, 3/27)

KFF Health News: Give And Take: Federal Rural Health Funding Could Trigger Service Cuts
The emergency department at Big Sandy Medical Center is one room with a single curtain between two beds. It’s one of the many parts of the 25-bed rural hospital that need updating, former CEO Ron Wiens said. He said the hospital, an essential service in its namesake town of nearly 800 residents in the state’s sprawling north-central high plains, needs at least $1 million for deferred maintenance, including a failing HVAC system. But the facility has struggled to make payroll each month and can’t afford to make all the fixes, Wiens said. (Bolton and Zionts, 3/27)

ON CAPITOL HILL

Politico: Senate Agrees To End Shutdown For Most Of DHS 
After two months of unyielding negotiations, both parties gave up early Friday on reaching a grand accord to reform and fund the Department of Homeland Security. Instead, Senate Republicans accepted what Democrats have been offering for weeks — cash for all of DHS except for ICE and part of Customs and Border Protection. ... For Democrats, the solution to the DHS shutdown means no additional constraints on the two agencies left not fully funded since federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and [VA nurse] Alex Pretti in Minnesota in January. (Carni and Scholtes, 3/27)

Healthcare Dive: House Democrats Accuse CMS Official Of Misleading Congress Under Oath 
Two influential House Democrats are accusing a top CMS official of providing inaccurate testimony under oath about the government’s efforts to get in touch with Minnesota before cutting off Medicaid funding to the state. During a congressional subcommittee hearing on healthcare fraud last week, CMS Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Brandt testified that the CMS was unable to schedule a hearing with Minnesota due to ongoing litigation with the state. But two days after testifying, Brandt requested that the hearing be stayed herself, according to a letter sent to Brandt Tuesday by Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y. (Parduhn, 3/26)

The Hill: 'Medicare By Choice' Proposal Aims To Unite Democrats On Health Care
A coalition of former congressional staffers and federal health leaders is putting forward a health care policy proposal around which it hopes Democrats will coalesce ahead of the 2028 campaign, a position it is calling “Medicare by Choice.” “Medicare for All,” the proposed single-payer national health care system that would replace private health insurance, proved to be a politically testy item during the 2024 election. Former Vice President Kamala Harris left it off her agenda when she became the Democratic nominee for president, despite having previously pushed for such a system. (Choi, 3/26)

The Hill: Senate Democrats Condemn Trump Administration's Proposed ACA Rule
A trio of top Senate Democrats led their colleagues in condemning a proposed rule by the Trump administration that would lift restrictions on the number of nonstandardized plans that insurers in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace can offer and promote catastrophic health plans, which are high-deductible plans meant for worst-case scenarios. In February, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) submitted a proposed rule for the benefit and payment parameters for ACA plans in 2027. (Choi, 3/26)

The Hill: Lawmakers Behind Bipartisan Push For Legislation Detecting And Preventing Alzheimer’s: ‘It’s Too Expensive Not To’
House Reps. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) and Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), co-sponsors of the Alzheimer’s Screening and Prevention (ASAP) Act, said Thursday that proactively addressing Alzheimer’s disease is “too expensive” of an issue for Congress to ignore. Appearing on Thursday at The Hill’s “Getting a Diagnosis ASAP: Progress in Early Alzheimer’s Detection” event, sponsored by the Alliance for Aging Research, the two congressmen discussed why their bill, the ASAP Act, is crucial. (Choi, 3/26)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Bloomberg: US Probes Stanford’s Medical School Over Admissions Policy
The US Department of Justice is investigating medical-school admissions policies at Stanford University, Ohio State University and University of California at San Diego over possible racial discrimination, part of a campaign by the Trump administration to reshape higher education. The colleges confirmed the probes after the New York Times reported that they are facing requests from the agency’s civil rights division for data including medical school applicant test scores, ties to donors, and internal university communications. (Knox and Jenkins, 3/26)

Stat: As Political Pressure Mounts, Medical School Accreditor Drops Requirement To Teach About Health Equity
The leading medical school accreditation body in the U.S. has removed language from its standards that had required schools it validates to teach about health inequities. (Oza, 3/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Justice Department Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against NewYork-Presbyterian
The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against the prominent hospital system NewYork-Presbyterian, alleging that it used restrictions in its contracts with insurers to limit price competition and block lower-cost healthcare options. The suit, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. (Wile Mathews and Michaels, 3/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Trump Administration To Investigate California Over Trans Prisoners
The Trump administration is accusing California of exposing women in prison to violent assaults by allowing trans women to transfer to women’s prison facilities. The federal government will investigate “California’s and Maine’s practice of housing men in women’s prisons,” President Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced Thursday, referring — as it generally does — to transgender women as “men.” (Egelko, 3/26)

Stat: CMS Says Home Care Fraud Is Rampant. What Do The Data Show? 
In February, the U.S. DOGE Service released a gigantic dataset showing Medicaid provider spending from every month from 2018 to 2024. Social media buzzed with eye-popping numbers and claims of widespread fraud as the government insurer’s home care spending more than doubled from $937 million per month to $2.15 billion per month over that period. (Broderick, 3/27) 

Stat: NIH Funding Survey Shows Sizable Impact Of Foreign Subaward Ban 
Andres Vidal-Gadea’s neuroscience research was going well. A molecular neuroethologist at Illinois State University, he studies the function of genes, sussing out ways to stop the progression of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. To do so, Vidal-Gadea would knock out genes in nematodes, then have those worms attempt to burrow in dirt or go for a swim to see happened to their muscles. (Molteni, Oza and Wosen, 3/27)

CalMatters: Why A Private Company Is Investigating Rapes At An ICE Detention Center
San Diego County Sheriff’s officials failed to investigate at least seven reported sexual assaults at the privately run Otay Mesa immigration detention center in 2025, and records show the agency has ceded control of the cases to civilian administrators employed by the nation’s largest for-profit prison contractor. Under a 2020 memorandum of understanding between the sheriff’s department and CoreCivic, detention center Warden Christopher LaRose has authority to decide whether to investigate rape allegations at the facility, which currently houses just under 1,500 federal immigration detainees, most of whom are in custody awaiting hearings and have not been convicted of a crime. (Fry and Duara, 3/26)

RFK JR. AND MAHA

Stat: Kennedy, Oz Announce Healthcare Advisory Committee Members 
Members, ranging from health care execs to a motivational speaker, are tasked with recommending ways to cut costs, slash red tape, improve quality of care. (Cirruzzo, 3/26)

The New York Times: Kennedy’s Vaccine Agenda Hits Roadblocks, Diminishing His Clout
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crusade to scale back Americans’ reliance on vaccines has collided with political and legal realities that have endangered the Senate confirmation of one top health official, delayed the nomination of another and diminished his clout in Washington. A string of developments over the past several weeks have put Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda at risk. The confirmation of Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, is stalled on Capitol Hill, where three Republicans on the Senate Health Committee, including its chairman, have expressed concern about her views on vaccines. (Gay Stolberg, 3/26)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

CBS News: West Suburban Medical Center In Oak Park Blames Sudden Shutdown On Computerized Billing System
In less than 24 hours, all patients will be out of West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park as the hospital blames its abrupt shutdown on a computerized billing system. On Thursday hospital signs were getting covered up, but no one who works there was hiding how they feel. (Brennan, 3/26)

Modern Healthcare: OpenEvidence Launches Coding Intelligence For AI Medical Billing
Healthcare artificial intelligence company OpenEvidence launched a feature designed to automate the medical coding and billing process. Coding Intelligence is part of OpenEvidence Visits, the company’s digital assistant for clinicians, which launched in August. The product introduction comes two months after the company closed a $250 million series D funding round, which gave it a $12 billion valuation. (Famakinwa, 3/26)

Modern Healthcare: Advocate Health To Launch Drone Delivery Network Through Zipline
Advocate Health plans to start delivering prescriptions, lab samples and home health supplies via drones next year. It is partnering with Zipline, a drone-based delivery company, Advocate said Thursday. Drone deliveries will launch in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Advocate is based, followed by Chicago and Milwaukee, two areas where it has a significant presence. (DeSilva, 3/26)

WFSU: University System OKs TMH Transfer To FSU
The State University System Board of Governors has approved Florida State University's $110 million contract with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and the city of Tallahassee. It's part of the agreement for the city to transfer the hospital and its assets to FSU. (Wood, 3/27)

CIDRAP: Study Challenges ‘5-Second Rule’ For Dropped Surgical Implants
In kitchens, the “five-second rule” offers a small, comforting fiction—that what falls and is retrieved quickly can be salvaged germ-free. A similar story can surface in surgical settings, where dropped objects are surprisingly common. But a new randomized study suggests that even brief contact with a contaminated surface can affect the sterility of surgical implants and that certain disinfection methods can reduce, but not fully eliminate, contamination. (Bergeson, 3/26)

CNBC: Family Caregivers Now Provide $1 Trillion Worth Of Care Annually
About 59 million Americans provided care for an adult family member, neighbor or friend in 2024, according to a new report from the AARP Public Policy Institute. Their efforts added up to 49.5 billion hours of care, representing $1.01 trillion in total economic value annually, the report estimates. (Konish, 3/26)

PHARMA AND TECH

Healthcare Dive: CVS, FTC Reach Proposed Settlement In Insulin Pricing Case 
CVS Health has reached a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in the agency’s sweeping case against major pharmacy benefit managers for allegedly inflating the cost of U.S. insulin. The proposed consent agreement was disclosed Monday in a joint motion from the FTC and CVS for the company’s subsidiaries, PBM Caremark and group purchasing organization Zinc, to withdraw from the case while antitrust regulators consider the deal. (Parduhn, 3/24)

Bloomberg: Novartis To Buy Excellergy In Deal Worth Up To $2 Billion
Novartis AG has agreed to acquire biotech firm Excellergy Inc. for as much as $2 billion, in a deal that will strengthen its portfolio of treatments for food allergies and other immunology conditions. The transaction, which includes upfront and milestone payments, is expected to close in the second half of this year, subject to conditions including regulatory approvals, the Swiss drugmaker said in a statement. (3/27)

Stat: Rocket Gene Therapy Kresladi Approved For Rare Immune Disorder 
The Food and Drug Administration approved on Thursday a gene therapy for severe leukocyte adhesion deficiency type 1 (LAD-1), an ultra-rare disease that leaves children vulnerable to life-threatening infections. (Mast, 3/26)

MedPage Today: Can GLP-1 Drugs Prevent Worsening Mental Illness? Perhaps, Study Suggests
People with pre-existing depression or anxiety were less likely to have mental health worsening while taking a GLP-1 medication, observational Swedish data suggested. (Monaco, 3/26)

MedPage Today: Are Bayesian Statistics Coming To A Clinical Trial Near You?
The FDA's move to incorporate Bayesian statistical methods into clinical trials of drugs and biologics garnered special treatment in JAMA this week. JAMA published three perspectives -- two welcoming the agency's draft guidance, published in January, and one urging caution. (Fiore, 3/26)

Bloomberg: Elizabeth Holmes Gets A Year Knocked Off Her Prison Sentence
Disgraced Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes got a year knocked off her 11 1/4-year prison term under a change in sentencing guidelines that applies to convicts with no previous criminal history. Holmes qualified for the reduced term under a 2023 rule change allowing first-time offenders to do less time for some non-violent crimes, according to an order issued Thursday by the federal judge who sentenced her in 2022 for defrauding investors in her blood-testing startup. (Hurtado and Blumberg, 3/26)

STATE WATCH

The Texas Tribune: Rural Texas Pharmacies Use Novel Strategies To Stay Afloat
Crystal McEntire lives two lives. Every morning, she wakes up to tend to her family’s ranch near the top of the Texas Panhandle that houses a herd of Red Angus cattle. But after mornings of farm work, she exchanges her ranch jeans for pharmacy jeans, she said, and drives 26 miles to Hyland’s Pharmacy in Wheeler County — one of two pharmacies she owns — a drive she described as a moment for decompression. (Johnstone, 3/26)

WUFT: 'Flying ICU' Aims To Cut Emergency Response Times In North Central Florida 
HCA Florida on Wednesday unveiled an air ambulance program in Gainesville that will increase emergency transportation capacity in rural and hard-to-reach communities of north central Florida. (Roches, 3/26)

CBS News: Why Kids And Families Learn To Cook During Doctor's Appointments At A Massachusetts Hospital
March is Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month, and for families navigating celiac disease, treatment does not come in the form of medication or a cure. Instead, it requires a lifelong commitment to a strict gluten-free diet. At Boston Children's Hospital's Needham campus, that education is happening in an unexpected place - the kitchen. What looks at first like a cooking class, is actually a doctor's appointment designed to help children and families build real-life skills around food and health. (Pitts, 3/26)

Verite News: Learn How To Protect Yourself From Lead Exposure At Free New Orleans Event
If you live in New Orleans, chances are you’ve been exposed to some level of lead, whether it’s from contaminated soil, from chipping paint on an older house or leaching into your drinking water from lead pipes. Residents can learn more about the risks and measures to take to minimize them at Exposed: Lead in New Orleans, a free community event hosted by Verite News, on Wednesday, April 1, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (3/26)

SOCIAL MEDIA AND MENTAL HEALTH

AP: Woman Whose Son Died From Drugs Bought On Social Media Celebrates Verdicts Against Meta, YouTube
A Colorado woman whose son died from a fentanyl-laced pill he bought through social media celebrated a pair of verdicts this week against Meta and YouTube that she said opened the door for companies to be held responsible for harms to children using their platforms. “The truth is out, and it’s time that they are held accountable for the design of the platforms,” said Kimberly Osterman, whose son Max died in 2021 at age 18. “They put profits over safety.” (Peipert and Schoenbaum, 3/27)

AP: Verdicts Against Social Platforms Validate Concerns Long Raised By Parents, Whistleblowers
For years, parents, teenagers, pediatricians, educators and whistleblowers have pushed the idea that social media is detrimental to young people’s mental health and can lead to addiction, eating disorders, sexual exploitation and suicide. For the first time, juries in two states took their side. In Los Angeles on Wednesday, a jury found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children using their services. In New Mexico, a jury determined that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Tech watchdog groups, families and children’s advocates cheered the jury decisions. (Ortutay, 3/26)

CBS News: Minnesota House Advances Bill Requiring Social Media Protections Against 'Addictive' Features, Parental Consent For Children
A bipartisan proposal to set guardrails around social media sites for children advanced in the Minnesota House on Thursday, one day after a landmark case against tech companies in which they were found liable for creating products that led to harmful behavior. The Minnesota bill would require parental consent for someone under 15 to make an account and would limit features bill authors say are addictive: infinite scrolling, autoplay of videos and push notifications for those users. Paid ads would also be prohibited and the strongest privacy settings need to be the default. (Cummings and Lisignoli, 3/26)

AP: New Study Says AI Is Giving Bad Advice To Flatter Its Users
Artificial intelligence chatbots are so prone to flattering and validating their human users that they are giving bad advice that can damage relationships and reinforce harmful behaviors, according to a new study that explores the dangers of AI telling people what they want to hear. The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, tested 11 leading AI systems and found they all showed varying degrees of sycophancy — behavior that was overly agreeable and affirming. The problem is not just that they dispense inappropriate advice but that people trust and prefer AI more when the chatbots are justifying their convictions. (O’Brien, 3/26)

OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS

MedPage Today: Utah Is The New U.S. Hotspot For Measles
While South Carolina appears to be getting its measles outbreak under control, a new U.S. hotspot has popped up: Utah. A cross-border outbreak between Utah and Arizona has persisted since last summer, but researchers are eyeing a state high school wrestling championship as a possible super-spreader event. (Henderson, 3/26)

The Texas Tribune: Measles In Federal Detention Facility Reaches The Texas Public
An explosion of reported measles cases in Texas’ federal detention facilities broke through to the public last month, infecting at least four El Paso residents who worked in one of the centers and potentially exposing the highly contagious disease to the wider population, according to emails obtained by The Texas Tribune through record requests. (Nguyen and Keemahill, 3/26)

CIDRAP: CDC Data Suggest Small Decline In US TB Cases
New surveillance data published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show a slight decline in US tuberculosis (TB) cases in 2025. The provisional report of data submitted to the CDC’s National Tuberculosis Surveillance System shows 10,260 TB cases were reported in 2025, with a corresponding rate of 3.0 cases per 100,000 population. That represents a 1% decline in cases and 2% decline in the national TB rate from 2024 to 2025. (Dall, 3/26)

CIDRAP: Pertussis Cases In The Americas Region See Post-Pandemic Swing
After two years with spikes in activity, the Americas region is reporting a slight decline in confirmed cases of pertussis, or whopping cough, in 2025, according to the newest epidemiological update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). (Soucheray, 3/26)

CIDRAP: Hepatitis C Is Curable, Yet Only 1 In 3 Patients Receive Antiviral Drugs, Study Estimates
Only one in three Americans who have hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection receive curative antiviral drugs, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA. Researchers from the University of Virginia and Brigham and Women’s Hospital analyzed data from the Symphony Health Metys database, which estimates US prescription counts by county and month using a large sample of retail, mail-order, and specialty pharmacy data, from January 2013 to December 2025. (Van Beusekom, 3/26)

AP: 9 Sickened In E. Coli Outbreak Tied To Raw Milk And Cheese
Nine people, including children, have been sickened in an expanding outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to raw milk and cheddar cheese made with it from Raw Farm, a Fresno, California, producer, health officials said. Two cases in California were added Thursday to the outbreak first announced March 15, bringing the total number of ill people in that state to seven. Two others fell ill in Texas and Florida, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over half of the illnesses are in children younger than 5. Three people were hospitalized and one developed a dangerous type of kidney infection, the CDC said. (Aleccia, 3/27)

PUBLIC HEALTH

ABC News: Smoking Rate Among US Adults Drops To Record Low As Vape Use Rises: CDC
Cigarette smoking among U.S. adults continues to fall to record low levels as e-cigarette use rises, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published early Thursday. Nearly 10% of adults in the U.S. smoked cigarettes in 2024, the report found. This is down from about 11% in 2023, CDC data shows. Rates of cigarette use have dramatically fallen since a landmark 1964 Surgeon General report warned about the dangers of cigarette smoking and linked it to lung cancer, chronic bronchitis and other serious diseases. (Kekatos and Le, 3/26)

Stat: Researcher Links Agent Orange Exposure To MDS Blood Cancer 
Decades after the Vietnam War, hematologist-oncologist Mikkael Sekeres began seeing veterans in his clinic with myelodysplastic syndromes, a group of blood cancers known as MDS. Many of the vets had been exposed to Agent Orange, a blend of herbicides that the military used to peel back dense foliage during the war. (Chen, 3/27)

GLOBAL WATCH

Bloomberg: Nucleus Genomics Expands Embryo Testing To India, Middle East Clinics
A New York-based embryo testing startup has struck deals with IVF clinics in India and the Middle East to expand use of the controversial technology. Nucleus Genomics Inc. has agreements with Indira IVF, which runs more than 165 fertility clinics across India, and Abu Ghosh Fertility Group, which operates in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the company said Thursday. As part of the deals, the clinics will offer Nucleus’ tests to couples undergoing in vitro fertilization. Nucleus also has an existing partnership with an operator of IVF clinics in Mexico. (Smith, 3/26)

CBS News: Sharks In The Bahamas Test Positive For Caffeine, Painkillers And Even Cocaine, Study Finds
Sharks in the Bahamas are consuming substances including caffeine, painkillers and even cocaine, according to a new study by marine scientists who say it could potentially impact the animals' health and behavior. The research team, made up of marine biologists and scientists from a variety of international programs, analyzed blood samples from 85 sharks of five different species. The sharks were captured about four miles off the coast of a remote island and their blood levels were tested for 24 legal and illegal drugs. (Breen, 3/26)