Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Monday, Aug. 11, 2025
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: Why Young Americans Dread Turning 26: Health Insurance Chaos
Amid the challenges of adulthood, one rite of passage is unique to the United States: the need to find your own health insurance by the time you turn 26. That is the age at which the Affordable Care Act declares that young adults generally must get off their family’s plan and figure out their coverage themselves. When the ACA was voted into law in 2010, what’s known as its dependent coverage expansion was immediately effective, guaranteeing health insurance to millions of young Americans up to age 26 who would otherwise not have had coverage. But for years, Republicans have whittled away at the infrastructure of the original ACA. The erosion of the law has now created an “insurance cliff” for Americans who are turning 26 and don’t have a job that provides medical coverage. (Rosenthal and Norman, 8/11)
KFF Health News: A Guide To Finding Insurance At 26
Young adults looking for health insurance will likely benefit from talking with so-called navigators who work for the online marketplaces. But if you want to go it alone, here are some tips about shopping for a plan, based on the advice of policy experts and people who have spent hundreds of hours helping others navigate this unwieldy set-up. Buckle up. (Rosenthal, 8/11)
KFF Health News and Healthbeat: Inside The CDC, Shooting Adds To Trauma As Workers Describe Projects, Careers In Limbo
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workers whose jobs have been reinstated after dizzying Trump administration disruptions say they remain stuck in a budgetary, political, and professional limbo. Their work includes major agency priorities such as HIV testing and monitoring, as well as work at the nation’s leading sexually transmitted infections lab. And while employees are back, many projects have been canceled or stalled, as funding disappears or is delayed. (Miller and Grapevine, 8/11)
KFF Health News: Listen: Regulatory Rollbacks And Federal Layoffs Could Threaten America’s Food Supply
If there were an outbreak of E. coli or another foodborne pathogen, would you want to know about it? Some scientists at the Food and Drug Administration worry that looser regulations and layoffs could make it harder for people to get that news and protect themselves. KFF Health News senior correspondent Stephanie Armour explained on WAMU’s “Health Hub” on Aug. 6. how the Trump administration is reshaping America’s food safety system. (Armour, 8/11)
KFF Health News: Journalists Talk Medicaid Work Rule Logistics And Colon Cancer Increase Among Young Adults
KFF Health News Montana correspondent Katheryn Houghton discussed Medicaid work requirements on The Majority Report with Sam Seder on Aug. 7. Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed what’s fueling the rise of colon cancer in adults under 54 on CBS News 24/7’s “The Daily Report” on Aug. 4. (8/9)
CNN: CDC Leaders Call Shooting Targeted And Deliberate As Rattled Staff Say They Felt Like ‘Sitting Ducks’
In a large and hastily arranged Zoom call on Saturday, about 800 rattled staffers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to make sense of the trauma they endured just a day earlier when a gunman opened fire on the agency’s buildings from across the street. They had been winding down for the weekend when more than 40 bullets smashed through their office windows, whizzing just over their cubicle walls and petrifying staffers in at least four buildings. (Faheld, Goodman and Tirrell, 8/11)
AP: Union Wants Statement Against COVID Vaccine Misinformation After CDC Shooting
A union representing workers at the CDC said the incident was not random and “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.” It demanded federal officials condemn vaccine misinformation, saying it was putting scientists at risk. Fired But Fighting, a group of laid-off CDC employees, has said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC’s workforce through “his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.” (Haigh, 8/10)
Politico: Trump's Former Surgeon General Blasts Kennedy For 'Tepid' Response To CDC Shootings
A former U.S. surgeon general on Sunday said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “failed” in his response to the shootings that took place on Friday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. “How you respond to a crisis defines a leader, and quite frankly Secretary Kennedy has failed in his first major test in this regard,” Dr. Jerome Adams told CBS’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” (Daniels, 8/10)
FDA
Stat: Vinay Prasad Returns To The FDA, Weeks After His Ouster
Vinay Prasad is returning to the Food and Drug Administration to resume his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy, and blood product regulation. “At the FDA’s request, Dr. Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,” Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon told STAT on Saturday. (Lawrence, 8/9)
Stat: 'Struggling' FDA Employees Ask About Unusual Meetings And Staffing
Top drug regulator George Tidmarsh assured Food and Drug Administration staff this week that he and other leaders are trying to bring operations back to normal. “I know that I’m coming in here at a challenging time,” Tidmarsh said at a town hall meeting on Friday with the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research staff. “That is not lost on me.” (Lawrence, 8/8)
HOMELESSNESS CRISIS
CBS News: Trump Says Homeless Should Leave D.C. "IMMEDIATELY" — After Floating Federal Takeover Of Capital
President Trump wrote Sunday that homeless people should be moved out of Washington, D.C., "IMMEDIATELY" and relocated "FAR" away, as he hints at more aggressive policing in the nation's capital — and suggests putting the city under federal control. In a series of Truth Social posts over the weekend, the president suggested he may take further action, announcing a Monday morning press conference he said would "involve ending the Crime, Murder, and Death in our Nation's Capital." (Walsh, 8/10)
VETERANS' HEALTHCARE
ProPublica: Doctors And Nurses Reject VA Jobs Under Trump
Veterans hospitals are struggling to replace hundreds of doctors and nurses who have left the health care system this year as the Trump administration pursues its pledge to simultaneously slash Department of Veterans Affairs staff and improve care. Many job applicants are turning down offers, worried that the positions are not stable and uneasy with the overall direction of the agency, according to internal documents examined by ProPublica. The records show nearly 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 doctors offered jobs from January through March of this year turned them down. That is quadruple the rate of doctors rejecting offers during the same time period last year. (Armstrong, Umansky and Coleman, 8/8)
The War Horse: Military Service Members Struggle With Eating Disorders, Risk Careers
Leah Stiles kept a dark secret tucked in a pocket of her Navy uniform, something she knew could get her booted from the service. In the end, it did. In 2017, her ship, the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush, was at war as part of a strike group that attacked Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq. For 15 years in uniform, she’d been at war with an eating disorder — a constant urge to purge her meals. She kept a toothbrush in her pocket to gag. (Wiehe, 8/8)
FUNDING AND RESEARCH CUTS
CBS News: Trump Administration Threatens To Take Harvard's Patents
The federal government told Harvard University on Friday it could take control of the school's patents stemming from federally funded research — the latest in a months-long feud between the Trump administration and the Ivy League college. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is launching an "immediate comprehensive review" of whether Harvard has complied with federal laws around patents, he said in a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber. (Jacobs and Walsh, 8/8)
The New York Times: The Harvard-Trained Lawyer Behind Trump’s Fight Against Top Universities
When President Trump wants to rattle academia, he turns to his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller. And then Mr. Miller turns to May Mailman. Ms. Mailman, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer, is the most important, least-known person behind the administration’s relentless pursuit of the nation’s premier universities. The extraordinary effort has found seemingly endless ways to pressure schools into submission, including federal funding, student visas and civil rights investigations. (Bender, 8/11)
Politico: Florida’s Universities Face Research Overhaul Courtesy Of Trump And DeSantis
President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape higher education in a conservative mold aren’t just targeting Ivy League elites. They’re stripping millions from Florida universities — and the state’s Republican governor is happy to help. While institutions like Harvard University and Columbia University are taking heat from the Trump administration, colleges all across the country — including deep red Florida — are feeling the squeeze of sweeping federal research cuts. Florida universities this year saw more than 90 grants terminated across key federal agencies. (Atterbury, 8/10)
MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Reuters: Exclusive: USPS Blocks Shipping Of Illicit Vapes In Boost For Big Tobacco
The U.S. Postal Service has cracked down on distributors of unregulated vapes using its services for business shipments, letters reviewed by Reuters show, in a blow to a multi-billion dollar industry that has dented Big Tobacco's sales. The letters, previously unreported, show that USPS wrote to major New York-based distributor Demand Vape, blocking it from using its services after New York City's Law Department, which represents the city's government and officials in legal matters, provided evidence that its shipments broke laws. (Rumney, 8/11)
The Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr.’s Latest Challenge: Bring MAHA To Alaska
In a community of roughly 230 people about six hours by car from Fairbanks on a gravel road, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heard from Alaska Natives about how hard it is to find fresh food. The king salmon that once sustained the village of Tanana are disappearing. Because of high fuel and shipping costs, a half gallon of milk at the local grocery store costs $10.99. A greenhouse took millions of dollars to construct, according to Kennedy, but was never hooked up to water and electricity, making it unusable for most of the year. (Essley Whyte, 8/10)
ABC News: Supreme Court Formally Asked To Overturn Landmark Same-Sex Marriage Ruling
Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision. Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees. ... More fundamentally, she claims the high court's decision in Obergefell v Hodges -- extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment's due process protections -- was "egregiously wrong." (Dwyer, 8/11)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Stat: UnitedHealth Medicare Advantage Studies Raise Bias Concerns
In every way, a study published this January in a major medical journal was a win for UnitedHealth Group. It showed that UnitedHealth’s preferred approach to covering Medicare patients, an especially profitable line of business, was producing higher-quality care for older Americans than the standard method. But a closer inspection reveals reasons to distrust the narrative. (Ross, Herman, Bannow and Lawrence, 8/11)
St. Louis Public Radio: New AI Software To Help Assess Breast Cancer Risk
Breast cancer may become easier to detect before it even develops with the help of new AI-based software created in St. Louis. Prognosia Breast, which was developed by a team of Washington University School of Medicine researchers, analyzes mammograms to determine a person’s risk of developing breast cancer within five years. The technology recently cleared a major hurdle earning a breakthrough device designation from the Food and Drug Administration. (Lewis-Thompson, 8/11)
Newsweek: Nationwide Soap Recall Issued Over Contamination Linked To Sepsis
DermaRite Industries has voluntarily recalled specific lots of its products nationwide due to contamination with Burkholderia cepacia, a bacterium that can cause serious infections in immunocompromised individuals. The products include DermaKleen, Dermasarra, Kleenfoam, and Perigiene items. The products are commonly used in health care settings for handwashing and skin care. (Marsden, 8/10)
STATE WATCH
The Boston Globe: Amid Trump's Medicaid Cuts, Health Centers In N.H. Announce Closure
For Dr. Melissa Buddensee, Ammonoosuc Community Health Services in Franconia has been home to her medical practice for a decade. But this summer, she’s had to deliver the bad news to her patients that the practice is closing, in part due to Medicaid cuts President Trump signed into law in July. Around New England, health care providers and experts warned those cuts are a damaging blow to a health system that was already in trouble. At least two other health facilities in New Hampshire have announced they will close in the fall amid federal Medicaid cuts. (Gokee, 8/10)
Chicago Tribune: Weiss To Remain Closed During Appeal Of Medicare Funding Cut
Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago, which had been scheduled to lose Medicare funding Saturday, ceased most of its operations Friday, officials confirmed. They also warned that without additional funding, West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park could face the same fate. (McCoppin and Soglin, 8/8)
The 19th: New Lawsuit Aims To Protect Health Care For Trans Inmates In Georgia Prisons
A group of incarcerated transgender women and men have sued Georgia corrections officials, challenging a new law that prevents them from receiving gender-affirming medical care. The lawsuit, filed Friday morning, accuses the state of violating the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. (Norwood, 8/8)
Suncoast Searchlight: Sarasota County Kindergarten Vaccine Rates Plummet — And Doctors Fear Speaking Out
As childhood vaccination rates plummet across the Suncoast and measles cases resurge nationwide, Sarasota County faces a critical threat to public health. Roughly 82% of kindergarteners in the public school system were fully immunized against the disease this year — well below herd immunity. (Herman and Newhouse, 8/8)
PUBLIC HEALTH
Reuters: GSK's Antibiotic Gets FDA Priority Review For Oral Treatment Of Gonorrhea
British drugmaker GSK said on Monday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted its application for priority review of gepotidacin, an oral antibiotic to treat sexually transmitted uncomplicated gonorrhea. (8/11)
CIDRAP: US COVID Activity Gains More Steam
Amid a slow but steady rise in COVID activity, SARS-CoV-2 wastewater detections last week rose from the low to the moderate level, with the highest levels in the West, followed by the South, where detections in Louisiana are at the very high level, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest weekly data updates. The CDC said wastewater trends and model-based epidemic trends suggest that COVID infections are growing or likely growing in most states. (Schnirring, 8/8)
AP: Boar’s Head Plans To Reopen Troubled Deli Meat Plant, But Reports Of Sanitation Problems Persist
The Boar’s Head deli meat plant at the heart of last year’s deadly food poisoning outbreak is set to reopen in the coming months, company officials said. But recent inspections at Boar’s Head sites in three states documented sanitation problems similar to those that led to the listeria contamination that killed 10 people and sickened dozens. The Jarratt, Virginia, plant was shut down in September. (Aleccia, 8/8)
The Washington Post: Anti-Sunscreen Movement Sparks Concern Among Dermatologists
A growing anti-sunscreen movement on social media is causing concern among dermatologists, who warn that avoiding sunscreen increases long-term health risks. (Malhi, 8/10)
ABC News: ALS Patient Is 1st To Control iPad By Thought With Implantable Brain Sensor
A patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has become the first person in the world to control an iPad entirely by thought, according to neurotech company Synchron. This means Mark Jackson, 65, from western Pennsylvania, can control the product without using his hands or voice commands. Instead, an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) translates his thoughts into actions. (Kekatos, 8/8)
