First Edition: Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Wheelchair? Hearing Aids? Yes. ‘Disabled’? No Way
In her house in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Barbara Meade said, “there are walkers and wheelchairs and oxygen and cannulas all over the place.” Barbara, 82, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so a portable oxygen tank accompanies her everywhere. Spinal stenosis limits her mobility, necessitating the walkers and wheelchairs and considerable help from her husband, Dennis, who serves as her primary caregiver. “I know I need hearing aids,” Barbara added. “My hearing is horrible.” She acquired a pair a few years ago but rarely uses them. (Span, 12/11)

KFF Health News: Health Care Consolidation And Rising Costs Happen, But Obamacare Is Not The Key Culprit
In a recent Meet the Press appearance, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) joined a growing number of Republicans who are speaking out against Obamacare. One of his lines of attack: that the Affordable Care Act fueled health care consolidation. “What Democrats did 15 years ago was they radically changed all health care in America. They moved all physicians under hospitals. They changed all the reimbursement programs. They shifted everything in,” Lankford said Nov. 9. (Appleby, 12/11)

KFF Health News: Trump Rules Force Cancer Registries To 'Erase' Trans Patients From Public Health Data
In 2026, the Trump administration will require U.S. cancer registries that receive federal funding to classify patients’ sex as male, female — or not stated/unknown. That last category is for when a “patient’s sex is documented as other than male or female (e.g., non-binary, transsexual), and there is no additional information about sex assigned at birth,” the new standard says. LGBTQ+ health advocates say that move in effect erases transgender and other patients from the data. They say the data collection change is the latest move by the Trump administration that restricts health care resources for LGBTQ+ people. (Pradhan, 12/11)

VACCINES

Axios: COVID Vaccines Should Be Taken Off The Market, RFK Jr.'s Anti-Vaccine Group Argues
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have said he won't take vaccines away from anyone, but that's exactly what the anti-vaccine organization he founded asked the Food and Drug Administration to do in a petition this week. (Owens, 12/11)

The New York Times: FDA Expands Covid Vaccine Inquiry To Adult Deaths 
The Food and Drug Administration has expanded its investigation of deaths possibly linked to the Covid vaccine to include adults as well as children, according to a Trump administration official. (Jewett, 12/9)

Stat: Cause Of Very Rare Covid Vaccine Side Effect, Myocarditis, Identified 
While extensive studies have found Covid-19 vaccines to be safe, effective, and to have saved millions of lives during the pandemic, these shots come with a rare but real risk of inflamed heart muscle, or myocarditis. Scientists on Wednesday reported that they have identified a pair of immune signals they believe drive these cases — and offered early evidence that these signals can be blocked. (Wosen, 12/10)

CNN: CDC Vaccine Advisers’ New Focus On Hepatitis B Tests In Pregnancy Is Not Enough, Some Doctors Warn 
Many medical organizations and frontline health care providers are grappling with a challenge they haven’t had to face in many years: how to protect newborns against hepatitis B. (Howard, 12/10)

MedPage Today: How Do We Know Aluminum Adjuvants In Vaccines Are Safe?
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine advisors have set their sights on aluminum adjuvants in vaccines as part of their review of the U.S. pediatric vaccine schedule. While the concept of injecting a metal into children can, on the surface, sound frightening to parents, the aluminum salt adjuvants on the market have a long track record of safety, experts told MedPage Today. Vaccine adjuvants have been used for about a century now, and aluminum adjuvants in particular have been included in marketed vaccines for more than 90 years. (Fiore, 12/10)

'MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN'

Axios: Trump Administration Bans SNAP Junk Food Purchases In 6 More States
Six more states agreed Wednesday to ban the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for junk food under new deals with the Trump administration. The move expands the Trump administration's use of the federal safety net to expand its Make America Healthy Again agenda. More SNAP recipients will be restricted from buying certain sugary drinks and food. (Rubin, 12/10)

Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Says National Food Standard Under Discussion With Industry Groups
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. signaled that he was open to a national food standard, a top priority for food companies trying to navigate proliferating state laws. “It is on the table for discussion,” Kennedy said in an interview Wednesday at the US Department of Agriculture with Secretary Brooke Rollins. (Peterson, 12/10)

ON CAPITOL HILL

Stat: House Passes Biosecure Act, New Chinese Biotech Restrictions 
Congress is poised to pass the Biosecure Act after two years of incremental changes that watered down the bill’s curbs on Chinese biotechs and made the law more palatable for U.S. biopharma companies. (Wilkerson, 12/10)

MedPage Today: Partisan Politics Sidetrack House Hearing On Healthcare Tech Costs
A House hearing Wednesday on the topic of how technology can help lower healthcare costs was sidetracked almost immediately by partisan politics. "Healthcare costs of the United States have long been on the rise, but recent Democrat policies and the radical Biden administration's regulatory agenda have made healthcare costs in America even worse," Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs, said in his opening statement. (Frieden, 12/10)

AP: Senate Poised To Reject Extension Of Health Care Subsidies As Costs Rise
The Senate is poised on Thursday to reject legislation to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits for millions of Americans, a potentially unceremonious end to a monthslong Democratic effort to prevent the COVID-era subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1. Despite a bipartisan desire to continue the credits, Republicans and Democrats have never engaged in meaningful or high-level negotiations on a solution. Instead, the Senate is expected to vote on two partisan bills and defeat them both — essentially guaranteeing that many who buy their health insurance on the ACA marketplaces see a steep rise in costs at the beginning of the year. (Jalonick, 12/11)

Politico: Trump Still Hasn’t Endorsed A Plan To Avoid Impending Obamacare Hikes For Millions
President Donald Trump has not endorsed a plan to prevent Obamacare rates from spiking in three weeks, leaving Republicans without a clear path ahead of a key vote. On Thursday the Senate is expected to vote down the only GOP plan on the table, an effort by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). Trump hasn’t waded into the fray, instead talking broadly about his preferences without publicly supporting a specific plan. Absent a deal, Obamacare subsidies will spike for millions of Americans in less than a month. (Haslett and Gangitano, 12/11)

Politico: Anti-Abortion Group Warns Against Forcing Vote To Expand Obamacare Subsidies 
The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is warning Republicans against signing onto a new effort to force a floor vote on extending Obamacare subsidies — upping the stakes of a push by GOP moderates to make an end run around leadership on the issue. “Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has vigorously opposed any Obamacare subsidy funding without Hyde protections,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser in the letter sent to lawmakers Wednesday. (Guggenheim, 12/10)

Politico: Health Insurers Ask GOP To Fix Their Fraud Problem — And Extend Obamacare Subsidies 
Health insurers are admitting they have a fraud problem. It’s part of a last-ditch attempt to convince Republicans to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies that have juiced profits the last four years. For an industry that has long said fraud claims were overblown, it’s a big turnabout. Republicans don’t seem interested in keeping the subsidies at the levels Democrats increased them to in a 2021 Covid relief law, despite a year-long insurer-led lobbying campaign stressing how the subsidies made insurance affordable for millions. (Hooper, 12/11)

Politico: States Argue Enhanced Obamacare Subsidies Not The Cause Of Fraud 
State health care exchanges say they have few problems with fraud. Instead of killing the subsidies, policy experts suggest fixing the federal exchanges instead. (King, 12/11)

MEDICARE

Bloomberg: Medicare Payments Targeted As GOP Grasps For Obamacare Counterproposal
Republican congressional leaders are considering a Medicare pay cut for hospitals as GOP lawmakers try to come up with a counterproposal to Democrats’ demands to renew Obamacare subsidies, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Wednesday. The policy was included in a list of health care options presented to Republican House members in a meeting on Wednesday, according to a document viewed by Bloomberg. (Cohrs Zhang and Reilly, 12/10)

Newsweek: Medicare Coverage Is Changing Next Month
Medicare coverage is changing next month as telehealth flexibilities largely disappear. The Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act extended telehealth options that were enacted during the coronavirus pandemic but ended during the government shutdown. (Blake, 12/10)

FEDERAL FUNDING

Bloomberg: US, Uganda Sign $1.7 Billion Health Funding Agreement Under Aid Shift 
The US and Uganda have agreed on a $1.7 billion health financing, part of a program that seeks to wean African nations off aid. The funds forms part of the US State Department’s longer-term America First Global Health Strategy, which promotes the procurement and distribution of goods from US companies in the administration’s foreign assistance programs. (Ojambo, 12/10)

Stat: Postscripts: Follow-Ups From A Year Of Research Cuts 
Over the course of 2025, STAT interviewed scientists, patients, university administrators, federal health workers, and others whose lives were disrupted by the Trump administration’s spending cuts, frozen and terminated grants, layoffs, and more. They included a young researcher suddenly worried about finding a job, a cancer patient confronted with a treatment delay, an Air Force veteran who’d lost her position at the Food and Drug Administration, and an epidemiologist who began tracking National Institutes of Health grant terminations, only to have his own funding cut. We caught up with them in recent weeks to hear what has happened since we last spoke. Here are their stories. (12/11)

MENTAL HEALTH

AP: CDC Says US Suicide Rate Fell In 2024
The U.S. suicide rate dropped slightly last year from some of the highest levels ever reported, preliminary data suggests. Experts say it’s hard to know exactly why, or whether the decline will continue. A little over 48,800 suicide deaths were reported in 2024, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 500 fewer than the year before. The overall suicide rate fell to 13.7 per 100,000 people. (Stobbe, 12/10)

AP: Court Upholds New Jersey Assisted Suicide Law's Residency Requirement
A New Jersey law that permits terminally ill people to seek life-ending drugs applies only to residents of the state and not those from beyond its borders, a federal appeals court ruled. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments challenging New Jersey’s residency requirement while acknowledging how fraught end-of-life decisions can be. The court noted that not all states have adopted the same approach. (Catalini, 12/10)

AP: Open AI, Microsoft Face Lawsuit Over ChatGPT's Alleged Role In Murder-Suicide
The heirs of an 83-year-old Connecticut woman are suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft for wrongful death, alleging that the artificial intelligence chatbot intensified her son’s “paranoid delusions” and helped direct them at his mother before he killed her. (Collins, O’Brien and Ortutay, 12/11)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Wrestles With Death Penalty In Cases Of Intellectual Disabilities
The Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled with whether to allow Alabama to execute a man with low cognitive function, a ruling that could set new rules for states to condemn those with borderline intellectual disabilities to death row. Roughly two hours of intense arguments did not seem to produce a consensus among the justices over how states should assess IQ tests to determine mental disability. (Jouvenal, 12/10)

The Conversation: Social Media, Not Gaming, Is Tied To Rising Attention Problems in Teens
Can social media cause ADHD in teens? Amid Australia's social media age limits, research looks at social media's impact on youth attention spans. (Klingberg and Nivens, 12/9)

MedPage Today: One Antidepressant Deprescribing Strategy Topped Others In Preventing Relapse
Slow tapering of antidepressants with psychological support was as effective as antidepressant continuation in preventing relapse among patients with remitted depression, a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomized trials suggested. (Jeffrey, 12/10)

The New York Times: Will The N.Y.P.D. Push Its Therapy Dogs Into Early Retirement? 
The dogs are part of a mental wellness program that began after a rash of officer suicides. The dog unit’s fate is unclear as Commissioner Jessica Tisch shifts more officers to patrol duty. (Cramer, 12/11)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

The Guardian: Meta Shuts Down Global Accounts Linked To Abortion Advice And Queer Content
Meta has removed or restricted dozens of accounts belonging to abortion access providers, queer groups and reproductive health organisations in the past weeks in what campaigners call one of the “biggest waves of censorship” on its platforms in years. The takedowns and restrictions began in October and targeted the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts of more than 50 organisations worldwide, some serving tens of thousands of people – in what appears to be a growing push by Meta to limit reproductive health and queer content across its platforms. (Down, 12/11)

The Guardian: Texas And Florida Sue FDA In Latest Effort To Restrict Abortion Pill Access
Texas and Florida have launched the latest lawsuit seeking to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, following the US Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of a new generic version. In the lawsuit, filed late on Tuesday in federal court in Wichita Falls, Texas, the states’ Republican attorneys general argue that the FDA has failed to thoroughly evaluate the drug’s safety and effectiveness since its initial approval in 2000 and disregarded the risks to the women who take it. (Guardian staff and agencies. 12/10)

NBC News: FDA Panel Calls To Loosen Restrictions On Testosterone Replacement Therapy
A Food and Drug Administration panel on Wednesday advocated for regulatory changes that would make testosterone medications more widely accessible, including removing their classification as controlled substances and changing product labels to expand eligibility. The 13-person panel — composed primarily of urologists and federal health officials — gave a resounding endorsement of testosterone replacement therapy, a treatment for men whose bodies don’t produce enough of the hormone. (Bendix, 12/10)

NBC News: Heart Disease Risk 81% Higher For Women With Uterine Fibroids, Study Finds
Heart disease has long been the top killer of women in the United States, but new research suggests uterine fibroids, which many may not even be aware they have, could be putting them at a significantly greater risk. A large, 10-year study found that women with leiomyomas had an 81% higher long-term risk of heart disease than those without the common condition. Women with fibroids — generally benign tumors that can form on or in the uterus — also had higher individual risks of cerebrovascular, coronary artery and peripheral artery diseases a decade after diagnosis. (Leake, 12/10)

AP: San Francisco Woman Gives Birth In Self-Driving Waymo Taxi 
Self-driving Waymo taxis have gone viral for negative reasons involving the death of a beloved San Francisco bodega cat and pulling an illegal U-turn in front of police who were unable to issue a ticket to a nonexistent driver. But this week, the self-driving taxis are the bearer of happier news after a San Francisco woman gave birth in a Waymo. (Har, 12/10)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

The New York Times: Nursing Home Owners Pocketed Millions As Patients Suffered, Report Says 
The owners of two New Jersey nursing homes owe the government $124 million after diverting tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding to themselves and their associates while intentionally understaffing the facilities, according to a report that the Office of the State Comptroller released Wednesday. Conditions were grim at the nursing homes owned by Daryl Hagler and Kenneth Rozenberg, friends who have collaborated on business deals for more than two decades, according to the report. (Baker, 12/10)

Modern Healthcare: HCA, Tenet, UHS Receive FTC Letters Over Noncompete Agreements
The Federal Trade Commission sent a letter this fall to some of the largest for-profit health systems and staffing firms, including HCA Healthcare, Tenet Healthcare Corp. and Universal Health Services, warning them to ensure any employment contracts aren’t restricting competition and access to care. (Kacik, 12/10)

Stat: Why Big Insurers Are Sitting Out The 2026 JPM Healthcare Conference 
For a second straight year, the nation’s largest health insurance companies will not be formally presenting at January’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the industry’s premier investor event. (Bannow and Herman, 12/10)

St. Louis Public Radio: Webster Groves Pediatric Mental Hospital Set To Open In 2026 
Construction is underway on a 77-bed children’s psychiatric hospital in Webster Groves. Workers finished the skeleton of the new building near Rock Hill Road and Gore Avenue and celebrated with a topping-off ceremony Tuesday. St. Louis Children’s Hospital and KVC Missouri will operate the hospital, which will serve patients ages 6 to 18. (Fentem, 12/10)

Modern Healthcare: AHA CEO Rick Pollack To Retire By End Of 2026
Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, plans to retire by the end of 2026. Pollack, who joined the trade group in 1982, spent several years as its executive vice president for advocacy and public policy before becoming president and CEO in 2015. During his tenure, Pollack has vocally opposed Medicaid cuts, most recently with regard to President Donald Trump’s new tax law. (DeSilva, 12/10)

Bloomberg: Celtics Co-Owner Makes Record Gift To Children’s Hospital
Rob Hale, a telecommunications executive and a minority owner of the Boston Celtics professional basketball team, is donating $100 million to Boston Children’s Hospital. It’s the largest-ever donation to Boston Children’s, which is world-renowned for its pediatric care, and comes as hospitals and universities in the region grapple with the impact of cuts to federal research support. The gift, which Hale is making jointly with his wife, Karen, will fund the construction of a new 116-bed building in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood dedicated to mental health services. (Ryan, 12/10)

PHARMACEUTICALS

Stat: Nonprofit Wins FDA Approval For Rare Disease Gene Therapy, In A First 
The Food and Drug Administration this week granted approval to a new gene therapy for a rare immune disorder, the maker of which is notably not a drug company, but an Italian charity. (Joseph, 12/10)

CIDRAP: FDA Approves US-Manufactured Antibiotic Under New Priority Review Program
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday approved a US-manufactured version of the oral antibiotic Augmentin XR (amoxicillin-clavulanate potassium) under a pilot program that aims to fast-track the review process for drugs. The approval is the first under the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher (CNPV) program, which was launched in June. FDA officials said the approval was completed in just two months. FDA review of drug applications typically takes 10 to 12 months. (Dall, 12/10)

STATE WATCH

AP: North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein Halts Medicaid Rate Cuts Amid Litigation And GOP Pushback 
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein is canceling Medicaid reimbursement rate reductions he initiated over two months ago, preserving in the short term access to care for vulnerable patients while a political fight with Republican legislators to enact additional funding gets resolved. Stein and state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Dev Sangvai said at a Wednesday news conference that the state agency would restore reimbursement rates for doctors, hospitals and other medical providers of Medicaid services, which otherwise generally had been cut by 3% to 10% starting Oct. 1. (Robertson, 12/10)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Contract Fight Between SSM Health And UnitedHealthcare Threatens Coverage In St. Louis
Stalled negotiations between UnitedHealthcare and SSM Health are threatening in-network medical coverage for thousands of people in the insurer's commercial and Medicaid plans, say officials for both companies, while blaming each other for the impasse. (Suntrup, 12/10)

Bloomberg: New York Warns 950,000 To Lose Health Coverage Under Trump Budget Cuts
Nearly 1 million New Yorkers are expected to lose health coverage as a result of President Donald Trump’s federal budget, a shift that will strain the city’s struggling public hospital system. Under eligibility changes enacted as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, an estimated 800,000 New York City residents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a report Wednesday. An additional 150,000 residents will likely lose coverage from the state’s Essential Plan, which provides health care to low-income New Yorkers. (Nahmias, 12/10)

Los Angeles Times: Homeless Services CEO Steps Down From Government Oversight Board Amid Scandal
The chief executive of one of Los Angeles’ most prominent homeless service nonprofits has resigned from a government oversight board amid a federal investigation into one of the nonprofit’s real estate dealings. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass originally appointed Weingart Center CEO Kevin Murray to the board of the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, which is tasked with spending a portion of Measure A sales tax revenue on affordable housing and homeless prevention. (Khouri and Tchekmedyian, 12/9)

OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS

Bloomberg: ByHeart Baby Formula Botulism Outbreak Grows To 51 Cases, CDC Says
An outbreak of infant botulism linked to ByHeart’s baby formula is much wider than initially thought, potentially dating back two years, US health agencies said Wednesday. An investigation found 10 new cases of baby botulism from December 2023 through July 2025, the Food and Drug Administration said. The total outbreak now includes 51 infants with confirmed or suspected botulism across 19 states that consumed formula from ByHeart, the agency said. (Nix, 12/10)

The Washington Post: South Carolina Measles Outbreak Worsens, With Hundreds In Quarantine
South Carolina’s measles outbreak is “accelerating” in the wake of Thanksgiving travel and a lack of vaccinations, an epidemiologist for the state’s Department of Public Health (DPH) warned Wednesday, after authorities traced a sizable outbreak to a church in the state’s northwest. Of the 111 measles cases recorded in that area, known as the Upstate region, 105 involved people who were unvaccinated while three involved those who were partially vaccinated, state epidemiologist Linda Bell said at a news briefing. At least 254 people had been placed in quarantine as of Tuesday, 16 of whom are in isolation, the DPH said in a news release. (Kasulis Cho, 12/11)

The Boston Globe: 130-Plus Students In Medford Absent Amid Suspected Norovirus Outbreak
An elementary school in Medford will be closed on Thursday for a deep clean after more than 130 students were out sick, and others in attendance noted feeling ill, amid a suspected norovirus outbreak, school officials said. A high volume of stomach illness cases reported at Roberts Elementary School on Wednesday prompted officials to cancel class the next day, said Suzanne B. Galusi, the interim superintendent of Medford Public Schools, and Michelle Crowell, the principal of the elementary school, in a notice to families on Wednesday afternoon. (Larson, 12/10)