Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: A State Gave Sheriffs 20% Of Its Opioid Settlement Cash. We Followed The Money
Every state is receiving opioid settlement payouts from companies accused of flooding the nation with prescription painkillers and fueling overdose deaths. But only one state is directing 20% of those payouts to sheriffs — the largest carve-out for law enforcement nationwide. In Louisiana, sheriffs are elected, do not serve at the pleasure of another local official, and have independent budgets. They’re also not required to proactively report to the public or another authority how they spend billions in opioid settlement cash. (Pattani, 8/27)
KFF Health News: $50B Rural Health Transformation Program Needs More Transparency, Groups Say
One year into its creation, a $50 billion federal program aimed at improving rural healthcare lacks transparency, which could make it difficult to protect against fraud, identify successful projects, and ensure the program delivers on its promise to transform the system. Transparency “is really important to help protect the integrity of the program, ensure funds are reaching the communities they’re meant to serve,” said Maya Sandalow, director of health policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank. (Zionts, 8/27)
KFF Health News: A Camp For Children With Brain Injuries Zips Ahead, Despite Federal Uncertainty
In an open field, arrows whizzed through the humid June air and struck their targets. Campers and counselors cheered. It was archery hour at Camp Cranium. Operations director Drew Meyer watched, a few tears escaping from behind his dark sunglasses. “They will surprise you, like, flat out,” he said of the campers, who have all survived brain injuries. “They’ll come out here, and they’ll shoot for three hours and start hitting the target.” (McFarlane, 8/27)
KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’
Arielle Zionts reads the week’s news: Pediatricians try to persuade more parents to vaccinate their kids amid measles outbreaks. Plus, how hospital monopolies drive up costs for patients and insurers. (8/20)
CANCER
ABC News: FDA Approves Breakthrough Drug To Treat Advanced Pancreatic Cancer
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved on Wednesday a drug that could extend the survival of those with metastatic pancreatic cancer. The drug, called daraxonrasib, will be sold under the brand name Rasonque from Revolution Medicines. The daily pill targets multiple forms of a protein called RAS, which is a main driver of tumor growth. A late-stage clinical trial with 500 patients showed that the median overall survival nearly doubled to more than 13 months versus a median survival of about 6.7 months for those being treated with standard chemotherapy. (Strauss and Kekatos, 8/26)
Stat: Secret Ingredient In A Promising Cancer Vaccine Is An Algorithm
A personalized cancer vaccine developed by Moderna and Merck has generated widespread enthusiasm since the companies announced last week that it had succeeded in a late-stage trial. If regulators ultimately approve it, the treatment will be a triumph of immunology and cancer biology. But it may also be a triumph of the algorithm. (Mast, Herper and Chen, 8/27)
The Hill: Early Sugar Rationing Linked To Lower Cancer Risks: Study
A new study has revealed that the amount of sugar consumed during the first two years of life can have lifelong effects. The study, published in PNAS in early August, focused on a group of 64,761 people born in Britain between 1951 and 1956. At the time, sugar and other common foods were rationed to prevent food shortages following World War II. Using data from the UK Biobank study, researchers compared health outcomes among adults who spent their first 1,000 days under sugar restrictions with those of people born after the restrictions were lifted. (Sitz, 8/26)
SOCIAL MEDIA AND MENTAL HEALTH
The Guardian: Meta Agrees To Major Changes To Facebook And Instagram As It Settles US Trial Over Teen Addiction For Up To $18bn
Meta agreed to significant changes to its Instagram and Facebook apps in a settlement that ended a landmark lawsuit on Wednesday. Dozens of US states had accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children with dangerous products. The agreement curtails a major trial in California and will require the social media company to pay up to $18bn. Meta agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and blocks on night-time use nationwide in the US. (Montgomery and Kerr, 8/26)
The New York Times: After Meta Settlement, Teens Divided On New Instagram And Facebook Restrictions
Young people said the platforms could be a space for gathering, but also a waste of time. (Holtermann and Kircher, 8/26)
MEASLES
WUSF: During Tampa Visit, RFK Jr. Urges Measles Vaccinations, Claims Pennsylvania Withheld Death Info
With measles cases on the rise and a report of the nation's first two deaths linked to the disease this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reiterated his call for people to get vaccinated but also accused Pennsylvania authorities of failing to cooperate with federal agencies on the matter. (Sheridan, 8/26)
ABC News: An Infant Is One Of The 2 Measles-Associated Deaths In Pennsylvania
An infant was among the two "measles-associated deaths" in Pennsylvania, the state health department confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday. Both individuals from Lancaster County were unvaccinated. The health department said they classify a death as "measles associated" when there is evidence of measles, either through laboratory testing or epidemiological links. The specific cause of death will be determined by the county coroner, whose investigation into the infant’s death is ongoing. (Benadjaoud and Kekatos, 8/27)
'MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN'
The Hill: General Mills Ends Artificial Coloring In US Cereals
General Mills said Wednesday that it has ended the use of artificial coloring in its United States cereal portfolio with intentions to remove the dyes from its full U.S. retail portfolio by the end of 2027. In a press release, the company stated that 90 percent of General Mills’s U.S. retail portfolio had made the transition while all of its cereal already removed certified colors. “This achievement reflects how we are evolving with consumer needs while continuing to offer food that tastes great, delivers quality and provides value,” Big C Cereal President at General Mills Bethany Quam said. (Bhakta, 8/26)
The Washington Post: White House-MAHA Fight Over Pesticides Snares FDA Nominee Heidi Overton
The MAGA-MAHA alliance helped carry Donald Trump back to the White House. It handed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. control of the nation’s health agencies. Now, it may fracture over a widely used herbicide. President Donald Trump’s decision that expanded domestic production of glyphosate earlier this year was a national security priority and not an endorsement of the use of the weed killer, White House officials have said — part of his Make America Great Again platform. (Roubein and Diamond, 8/26)
MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Modern Healthcare: CMS' Medicaid State-Directed Payments Rule Draws Pushback
A broad coalition of healthcare interests is urging the government to go back to the drawing board and redraft a regulation to limit Medicaid state-directed payments. Organizations such as the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the health insurance trade group AHIP and the National Association of Medicaid Directors have called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to pare back a proposed rule issued in May to align with the statutory text of President Donald Trump’s signature tax law. (Early, 8/26)
Military Times: Lawmakers Demand VA Bring Back LGBTQ+ Care Coordinators
Two House lawmakers are calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs to restore dedicated LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator positions and specialized support networks after the agency changed the structure of the program earlier this summer. Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., said in a letter Wednesday to VA Secretary Doug Collins that recent department directives eliminated dedicated LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator positions, dismantled specialized support networks and restricted tailored healthcare resources for LGBTQ+ veterans. (Oliverio, 8/26)
Military Times: US Navy Eyes Port Stops In Africa, India After USS Abraham Lincoln’s Marathon Deployment
In addition to accounts of scant rations and deteriorating mental health onboard the Lincoln, with at least two reported suicide attempts, sailors and families have spoken out about severe shortages of basic hygiene products, including soap and toothpaste. Navy officials have said resupply had to be prioritized, with hygiene products taking a backseat to food, as the deployment continued. Now, the Navy’s top admiral says the service is changing how it does pre-deployment stocking and resupply and looking at different places to make port calls. (Seck, 8/26)
PUBLIC HEALTH
CIDRAP: CDC Adds More Than 3,000 New Cyclospora Cases
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday added 3,285 infections to its 2026 Cyclospora total, which includes all outbreaks, raising the tally to 17,180 cases, compared with 1,180 cases through August last year. The CDC also said it is investigating an additional 11,844 cases that are not yet lab-confirmed. “Recent illnesses may not yet be reported due to the time it takes to identify and report Cyclospora cases. It can take about six weeks from the start of symptoms to when CDC receives the case information,” the CDC said. (Soucheray, 8/26)
CIDRAP: Flu, Pneumonia Deaths In US Adults Plunge 29% Over 25 Years, Data Suggest
From 1999 to 2023, the US age-adjusted adult death rate from influenza and pneumonia plummeted 29.2%, with the only statistically significant rise in crude death rates in adults aged 55 to 64, per a study published in Medicine. Researchers in China examined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER public death repository to identify those caused primarily by flu or pneumonia. (Van Beusekom, 8/26)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
MedPage Today: AMA Sued Over Its 'Paywalled' Billing Codes
Should Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes be free for all patients and clinicians to use? That's the question being asked in a recent lawsuit against the American Medical Association (AMA), which holds the copyright to the billing codes. PatientRightsAdvocate.org sued the physicians group in federal court earlier this month, claiming that the AMA in fact "has no valid copyright in CPT" and "has no right to withhold CPT from the public and charge hefty fees for access." (Frieden, 8/26)
Healthcare Dive: Monogram Health To Pay $2.4M To Settle Medicare Advantage Upcoding Allegations
Monogram Health has agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle allegations that it submitted unsupported diagnosis codes and overcharged Medicare through the privatized Medicare Advantage program, the Justice Department said Monday. The Tennessee-based home care company allegedly submitted inaccurate or medically unsupported diagnosis codes to insurers from 2021 through 2023, causing the CMS to pay Medicare Advantage plans more, according to the DOJ. (Mukherjee, 8/26)
Modern Healthcare: No Surprises Act Disputes Dominated By HaloMD, Radiology Partners
Radiology Partners, HaloMD and TeamHealth were behind more than three-quarters of No Surprises Act billing cases last year, according a Georgetown University study. Radiology Partners, TeamHealth, SCP Health and AGS Health had win rates exceeding 90%, according to the paper published in the journal Health Affairs Forefront on Wednesday. After the No Surprises Act’s Independent Dispute Resolution process debuted in 2022, the arbitration system quickly became swamped with cases and a slew of third-party vendors began working with both sides to argue over out-of-network claims. (Tong, 8/26)
Healthcare Dive: Employers Face ‘Existential Reckoning’ As Health Costs Surge
Healthcare spending isn’t just skyrocketing for U.S. companies. It’s also getting more difficult to predict, complicating efforts to keep cost growth in hand, according to new research. Employers are projecting a median 9.2% increase in health costs in 2027, as hospital prices rise, drugs get more expensive and workers and their families simply get sicker, the Business Group on Health, a nonprofit that represents employers on health benefits issues, found in its latest survey. (Parduhn, 8/26)
Modern Healthcare: Private Equity Healthcare Deals Fall As States Tighten Oversight
Private equity-backed healthcare transactions have slowed as states increase merger and acquisition oversight. Dealmaking in physician practice management, the healthcare sector that typically attracts the most private equity investment, is on pace to decrease 46% this year compared with 2025, according to a recent report from financial data and research company Pitchbook. The slowdown is in part linked to states that have passed laws requiring private equity firms to notify regulators of their proposed transactions or have banned certain types of deals commonly used by corporate investors. (Kacik, 8/26)
Modern Healthcare: NCQA, Komodo Health Partner On HEDIS Measures
The National Committee for Quality Assurance is partnering with artificial intelligence company Komodo Health to test new quality measures. The multiyear strategic partnership aims to use Komodo’s tech to aid NCQA in its development of Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set measures, which include data on preventive care, treatment and patient experience, according to a Wednesday news release. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the NCQA use these measures when calculating five-star ratings for Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurers. (DeSilva, 8/26)
Stat: Hospitals Race To Reverse Medicaid Cuts Before They Take Effect
Hospital leaders, stung by the passage of a law that will cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid funding over the next decade, have been racing to remake their systems. And in Washington, some are building a long-shot plan to turn back the clock. (Payne, 8/27)
Healthcare Dive: Suki Launches AI Dictation Tool With EHR Integration Capabilities
Artificial intelligence documentation startup Suki has launched a dictation tool that transcribes speech into text word-for-word, the company announced Tuesday. The company’s flagship product is a scribe that listens passively in doctors’ offices and turns patient-provider conversations into summarized clinical notes, rather than a transcript. But the new tool captures spoken word verbatim, which can be useful for providers working with complicated medical jargon, Suki said in a press release. (Hughes, 8/26)
Modern Healthcare: MD Anderson President Peter Pisters To Retire
Dr. Peter Pisters, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center president, plans to retire at the end of September, the organization announced Wednesday. The University of Texas System board named Dr. Jeffrey Lee, chief physician executive and chief cancer network officer at the cancer center, as interim president, according to a news release. Lee will lead it over the next several years, the release said. (Kacik, 8/26)
CIDRAP: IDSA-Led Panel Calls For New Strategies To Improve Sepsis Outcomes
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), eight other professional societies, and a patient advocacy group yesterday released a position paper aimed at improving sepsis outcomes in US hospitals. (Dall, 8/26)
PHARMA AND TECH
NPR: Medicare’s $50 Obesity Drug Program Is Proving Popular
Starting in July, Medicare began allowing eligible beneficiaries to get obesity drugs for $50 a month. Less than two months in, CVS and Walgreens tell NPR they've each filled around 100,000 such prescriptions. The prescriptions were made possible as part of a pilot called the Bridge program. (Lupkin, 8/26)
MedPage Today: GLP-1 Drugs Could Help Narrow Lifespan Gap In Serious Mental Illness
Starting a GLP-1 receptor agonist was associated with significantly lower risks of death and cardiovascular events in adults with serious mental illness (SMI), a target trial emulation showed. (Monaco, 8/26)
MedPage Today: FDA Expands Label Of Oral HIV Drug To Newborns
The FDA expanded the approval of dolutegravir tablets for oral suspension (Tivicay PD) to include newborns with HIV infections younger than 4 weeks of age, the agency announced on Tuesday. (Rudd, 8/26)
HealthDay: Illegal Fentanyl Use Twice Medical, Triples Overdose Risk
Illegal use of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl is more than double its use for medical purposes in the United States, a new study has found. More than 7 of 10 people whose urine tested positive for fentanyl had not been prescribed the drug, but were using it illicitly, researchers report in the September issue of the journal eClinicalMedicine. (Thompson, 8/27)
Stat: CAC Scans Growing In Popularity, But Not Everyone Needs One
When it comes to predicting heart attacks and strokes, what matters the most: a number, a picture, or both? (Cooney, 8/26)
STATE WATCH
AP: Healthcare Victims Lose Coverage As California And The Federal Government Battle Over Hospice Fraud
At 71 and a few years into retirement, Linda Henry felt like she was in good health, and only went to her doctor in Southern California for the occasional checkup. So it was a shock when she found out in 2024 that she had been enrolled in hospice, a specialized end-of-life care usually provided to people with six months or less to live. A Medicare worker told her the system said she had heart failure. (Ding, 8/27)
CalMatters: California Transgender Kids May Lose Medi-Cal Care In October
When A.W.’s husband lost his job, she was thankful the safety net preserved the family’s access to healthcare. Her eldest son had a team of doctors and therapists at Stanford’s specialty gender clinic; losing that support team, she said, would have been traumatic. The clinic accepted Medi-Cal patients. (Hwang, 8/26)
Modern Healthcare: This Red State Wants To Start A New Government-Run Health Market
If you’re imagining what a state would create a government-run health insurance plan, deep red Mississippi might not be your first guess. Yet the Mississippi Insurance Department is preparing to launch the “Mississippi Option” next year, which proponents claim will help thousands of middle-class residents who can’t afford the premiums for health insurance exchange policies. But don’t confuse the Mississippi Option with the “public option” many Democrats supported when Congress wrote the Affordable Care Act of 2010. (Tepper, 8/26)
NPR: States Try New Tactics To Bring Down High Hospital Prices
Every year Jim Evans faces the challenge of keeping health care costs reasonable for the more than 400 teachers, custodians and bus drivers at Concord Community Schools. Evans, the chief financial officer for the Northern Indiana school district is trying something new this year — negotiating directly with a local hospital. "We think that it could be significant savings," said Evans. (Olgin, 8/26)
Chicago Tribune: Midwifery Associates Degree Program Set For Kennedy-King College
Ashli Watts’ gaze drifted between her children, attention split between her toddler in the chair in front of her and the 3-month-old in her arms. They were part of the reason she sat in an academic building in Englewood Tuesday morning, listening intently, then smiling at the announcement she hopes will help her change the lives of mothers across the city in a few short months: the new midwifery program at Kennedy-King College. (Perez, 8/26)
MPR News: Minnesota Advocates Push For Medical Release Of Terminally Ill Prisoners
Scott Knutson, 61, is terminally ill and incarcerated at a state prison in Faribault for a nonviolent crime. He uses a wheelchair, rarely leaves his cell and suffers from multiple serious medical conditions affecting his breathing and kidneys. Knutson has been hospitalized repeatedly. His anticipated prison release date is March 2029, but Machelle Frisbie, an advocate for Knutson, said she does not believe he will live that long. (Zurek, 8/27)
New Hampshire Public Radio: Survey Shows Notable Drop In Depression Among NH High School Students
Mental health among New Hampshire’s high schoolers appears to be improving, according to new results from a statewide student survey. Following spikes in depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a drop in the percentage of students who report feeling persistently sad or say they have considered or attempted suicide. (Timmins, 8/26)
North Carolina Health News: Davie County Ends Water Fluoridation After Supply Chain Problems
On the first of September, Davie County will join the list of North Carolina community drinking water systems no longer adding fluoride to their supplies. Unlike the handful of other counties that considered ending system fluoridation, the decision in Davie County had a new twist. (Blythe, 8/27)
The New York Times: ‘You’re Ruining My Dreams’: C.T.E. Study Adds To Family Tension Over Football
Many families are engaged in tense debates after a new study found a high percentage of N.F.L. players had developed degenerative brain disease. (Macur, 8/26)
