Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: RFK Jr.’s MAHA Movement Has Picked Up Steam In Statehouses. Here’s What To Expect In 2026
When one of Adam Burkhammer’s foster children struggled with hyperactivity, the West Virginia legislator and his wife decided to alter their diet and remove any foods that contained synthetic dyes. “We saw a turnaround in his behavior, and our other children,” said Burkhammer, who has adopted or fostered 10 kids with his wife. “There are real impacts on real kids.” (Greenblatt, 1/13)
KFF Health News: This California Strategy Safeguarded Some Medicaid Social Services Funding From Trump
When Virginia Guevara moved into a studio apartment in California’s Orange County in 2024 after nearly a decade of homelessness, she needed far more than a roof and a bed. Scattered visits to free clinics notwithstanding, Guevara hadn’t had a full medical checkup in years. She required dental work. She wanted to start looking for a job. And she was overwhelmed by the maze of paperwork needed simply to get her off the street, much less to make any of the other things happen. (Kreidler, 1/13)
AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Modern Healthcare: ACA Open Enrollment For 2026 Lags Behind 2025 Sign-Ups: CMS
Health insurance exchange enrollment is trending downward compared with a year ago, according to preliminary data the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Monday. Nearly 22.8 million people — including 2.8 million new enrollees — had signed up with about two weeks to go, down 3.5% from a comparable period a year ago. This total reflects enrollments on the federal platform as of Jan. 3, on most state-based exchanges as of Dec. 27 and on Your Health Idaho as of its final deadline on Dec. 15. (Tepper, 1/12)
Axios: Scoop: Democrats Make Health Deal Offer With ACA Subsidies
Democrats sent Republicans a proposal over the weekend to renew enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years, paired with extensions of other expiring health programs, sources said. Sunday's offer shows there's increasing bipartisan sentiment to address long-stalled priorities like overhauling pharmacy benefit manager business practices — even if prospects for the ACA subsidies are much murkier. (Sullivan, 1/12)
ON CAPITOL HILL
The Wall Street Journal: UnitedHealth Used Aggressive Tactics To Boost Medicare Payments, Senate Report Finds
UnitedHealth Group deployed aggressive tactics to collect payment-boosting diagnoses for its Medicare Advantage members, a Senate committee investigating the company’s practices said. In Medicare Advantage, the federal government pays insurers a lump sum to oversee medical benefits for seniors and disabled people. The government pays extra for patients with certain costly medical conditions, a process called risk adjustment. (Weaver and Wilde Mathews, 1/12)
Bloomberg: AbbVie Pledges $100 Billion US Investment To Avoid Tariffs
AbbVie Inc. signed an agreement with the US government to lower some drug prices and invest $100 billion domestically in exchange for an exemption from certain tariffs. The Trump administration has been using the threat of heavy tariffs to convince major drugmakers to increase their presence in the US, provide drugs more cheaply to Medicaid, sell less expensive drugs directly to patients and set prices abroad at least as high as in the US. AbbVie’s agreement “addresses” all four of these, the company said in a press release Monday. (Swetlitz, 1/13)
Bloomberg: Pfizer Talking To Trump Administration About Priority Vouchers
Pfizer Inc. is looking to join its rivals in getting priority review vouchers, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said, after several drugmakers received the express passes after striking deals with the White House on pricing. The national priority voucher program was designed to support US interests and speed reviews for companies that are working with the administration on critical health goals. (Muller, 1/12)
Fierce Healthcare: HHS Appears Ready To Pull Appeal Of 340B Rebate Pilot Pause
The Department of Health and Human Services appears willing to take its contentious 340B Rebate Model Pilot Model back to the drawing board. After a lawsuit filed by hospitals secured a last-minute halt from a district court, that was later upheld by a three-judge panel, the federal government penned a letter informing the appellate court that it is speaking with the plaintiff hospital groups about whether the fall's green light for participating drugmakers should be "reconsidered." (Muoio, 1/12)
Becker's Hospital Review: Hospital Groups Push CMS To Revise Drug Cost Survey
Eight national hospital associations are urging CMS to revise a statement in its drug acquisition cost survey, saying the language in one of its frequently asked questions misleadingly implies hospitals are required to respond. In a Jan. 12 letter, the groups said it is “wrong to tell hospitals and health systems that they ‘are to’ complete” the Outpatient Prospective Payment System Drug Acquisition Cost Survey. The FAQ states that “all such hospitals are to respond to the survey,” referring to facilities paid under OPPS between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. (Jeffries, 1/12)
The New York Times: David Mitchell, Who Led Fight On Drug Prices, Dies At 75
David Mitchell, a public relations executive who, after receiving a cancer diagnosis in 2010, set aside plans to retire and instead became one of the country’s leading voices in the campaign to lower prescription drug prices, died on Jan. 2 at his home in Annapolis, Md. He was 75. His family said in a statement that the cause was multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer he had kept at bay for 15 years. (Risen, 1/12)
MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
The Hill: Federal Judge Orders HHS To Restore $12m In Funding To American Academy Of Pediatrics
A federal judge late Sunday ordered the Trump administration to restore nearly $12 million in grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), after the organization’s funding was abruptly cut last month. Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction that will restore the grants and block the cuts from taking effect while the case proceeds. Howell concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services had a likely “retaliatory motive” for the terminations, due to the AAP’s outspoken opposition to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Weixel, 1/12)
The New York Times: E.P.A. To Stop Considering Lives Saved By Limiting Air Pollution
For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution, using the cost estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules. Not anymore. Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times. (Joselow, 1/12)
Stat: FDA Veteran Pazdur Warns That Politics, ‘Chaos’ Are Hurting Agency
Richard Pazdur, a veteran regulator at the Food and Drug Administration who left the agency last month, said Monday the firewall between political appointees and drug reviewers at the agency “has been breached,” and that there is not enough transparency around a new voucher program that grants accelerated review to certain drugs selected by Trump administration officials. (Chen, 1/13)
Fierce Biotech: Flagship CEO Warns Trump Admin Is 'Undoing' Scientific Method
The Trump administration spent 2025 taking a sledgehammer to science, obliterating funding and reshaping agencies like the FDA and the National Institutes of Health through layoffs and restrictive new policies. In a new letter, Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., co-founder of Moderna and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, warns that these actions risk undermining the foundations of science itself to the ultimate detriment of health and biotech innovation in America. “Skepticism is an important part of the scientific method. Debate about approaches and outcomes is central to how science works,” Afeyan wrote in the Jan. 12 letter. “But what we are seeing is skepticism that has curdled into an across-the-board, corrosive doubt in the scientific method itself.” (Incorvaia, 1/12)
IMMIGRATION CRISIS
ProPublica: We Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing
Civilians have had apparent seizures. One had his eyes roll back. Another had ribs broken. “I felt like I was going to pass out and die,” said a 16-year-old citizen put in a chokehold. The government won’t say if any agents have been punished. (Foy and Funk, 1/13)
LGBTQ+ HEALTHCARE
AP: The Trevor Project Receives $45M From MacKenzie Scott After Difficult Years And Federal Funding Cuts
The Trevor Project, known for its hotline for LGBTQ+ youth, received $45 million from billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott at the end of 2025, the organization said Monday. The gift is the largest in the organization’s history but also a major boon following years of management turmoil, layoffs and the loss of significant federal funding over the summer. “I literally could not believe it and it took some time. I actually gasped,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, when they were notified of Scott’s gift. (Beaty, 1/12)
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
The New York Times: F.D.A. Decisions On Abortion Pill Were Based On Science, New Analysis Finds
A new study, published Monday in the medical journal JAMA, evaluates the F.D.A.’s track record of making decisions about mifepristone, drawing on rare access to internal memos, emails and thousands of pages of other documents. The study was led by experts in federal health policy and drug regulation at Johns Hopkins University. They found that, in the 12 years they examined, from 2011 to 2023, important F.D.A. actions involving mifepristone almost always adhered to evidence-based recommendations from the agency’s scientists. (Belluck, 1/12)
News Service of Florida: About 20,000 Fewer Abortions Were Performed In Florida In 2025 Than In 2024
More than 44,000 abortions were reported in Florida in 2025, a large drop during the first full year of a law that prevents most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Data posted on the state Agency for Health Care Administration website showed that 44,206 abortions had been reported as of Jan. 1. That was down from 64,854 abortions reported in 2024, though it was not immediately clear whether the 44,206 total was a final number for 2025 because of lags in reporting. (1/12)
St. Louis Public Radio: Planned Parenthood CEO Remains Optimistic
As a landmark trial over the legality of Missouri’s restrictions on abortion begins in Kansas City, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers CEO Margot Riphagen said she remains hopeful that this coming year will be different from the last. In 2025, multiple injunctions and appeals from the state’s attorney general led Missouri courts to repeatedly revive and prohibit access to abortion. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is forbidden to prescribe medication abortion under state law. Missouri is currently trying to further restrict access to medication abortions through a federal lawsuit with national implications. (Wicentowski, 1/12)
VACCINES
MedPage Today: Medical Groups Urge Congress To Probe Kennedy's Vax Schedule Changes
Hundreds of medical and public health organizations urged Congress to investigate the sweeping changes recently made to the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his administration. In a letter signed by more than 230 organizations representing clinicians, scientists, public health professionals, and patient groups, the signatories called on lawmakers to "conduct swift and robust oversight" of an overhaul they described as abrupt and opaque. (McCreary, 1/12)
CIDRAP: States, Health Organizations Reject New CDC Vaccine Guidance
A growing number of states are pushing back against sweeping changes to the US childhood vaccine schedule. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced an overhaul of the immunization schedule January 5, paring the number of universally recommended immunizations from 17 to 11. Since then, at least 17 states have announced that they won’t follow new CDC vaccine schedule: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. (Szabo, 1/12)
CIDRAP: Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine Safe To Use During Pregnancy, Study Suggests
An analysis of safety data suggests that Abrysvo, the Pfizer respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) RSVpreF vaccine, does not increase the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes when administered after 32 weeks’ gestation, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA. (Bergeson, 1/9)
CIDRAP: Moderna COVID Vaccine 53% Effective Against Adult Hospitalization In 2024-25 Season, Data Suggest
A large observational study using US healthcare claims and electronic health record data suggests that Moderna’s updated 2024-25 COVID vaccine was 39% effective at preventing medically attended illness among adults and 53% effective against hospitalization, particularly those at high risk for severe disease. (Bergeson, 1/12)
CIDRAP: North Dakota Confirms Pediatric Flu Deaths As Some States Note Surge In Flu Activity
For the first time in 10 years, the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services has reported flu-related deaths in children. The agency said two children have died from influenza complications and are among the five influenza-related deaths recorded in the state this flu season. News sources said the children were under the age of 10, but no additional information was being released at this time. As of January 3, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there have been 17 pediatric flu deaths this season. (Soucheray, 1/12)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Bloomberg: Mamdani Joins NYC Nurses On Hospital Walkout Picket Line
Thousands of nurses at three major hospitals in New York City began to strike on Monday, amid a severe flu season and broader pressures on the US health-care system. The walkout impacts roughly 15,000 nurses at hospitals including Mount Sinai Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian in Manhattan as well as Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined striking nurses on the picket line in Washington Heights. “All parties must return immediately to the negotiating table,” Mamdani said in brief remarks. “They must bargain in good faith.” (Harris and Sapienza, 1/12)
Modern Healthcare: Tampa General Hospital, Mass General Brigham Launch Outpatient JV
Mass General Brigham and Tampa General Hospital are launching a joint venture focused on outpatient care. Through the venture, the organizations aim to create an ambulatory care network offering primary care, specialty care, advanced imaging, oncology and outpatient surgical procedures for residents of the east coast of Florida, according to a Monday news release. (DeSilva, 1/12)
Stat: As They Brace For Bigger Challenges, Hospitals At JPM Say They’re Going 'Back To The Basics'
At this swanky investor event in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district, the country’s biggest nonprofit health systems usually talk up their money-making prowess and market share. But at this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, held as hospitals stare down historic cuts to Medicaid, the leaders who spoke lacked their normal swagger. Their pitch to investors was decidedly measured, with executives on Monday hammering themes of stability and consistency. (Bannow, 1/12)
Modern Healthcare: Providence Turnaround Plan May Include Hospital Sales
Providence is considering selling more assets, including potentially some hospitals, as it seeks to streamline operations and improve the health system’s finances, executives said Monday. “We have 51 hospitals, most of which have No. 1 market share in their communities, but we do have a handful that we may have to find a different purpose or different sponsors for,” Chief Financial Officer Greg Hoffman told attendees during a morning presentation at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. (Kacik, 1/12)
MedPage Today: How Often Do Physicians Encounter 'Difficult' Patients?
Nearly one-fifth of adult patient encounters in non-psychiatric settings were considered difficult by physicians, a meta-analysis found. The prevalence of difficult encounters was 17% across 10 studies measuring this parameter, Jeffrey Jackson, MD, MPH, of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Clement J. Zablocki Veterans' Administration Medical Center in Milwaukee, and colleagues reported. (Henderson, 1/12)
PHARMA AND TECH
The Washington Post: Risky Medications Still Prescribed To Dementia Patients Despite Warnings
An estimated quarter of traditional Medicare beneficiaries with dementia are prescribed risky, brain-altering drugs despite years of clinical guidelines cautioning against the practice, a new study shows. The drugs fall into five broad categories — including antidepressants, antipsychotics, and barbiturates — that may leave older adults in a drowsy, confused fog that can make them less steady on their feet and more prone to falls. (Johnson, 1/12)
The Baltimore Sun: New Alzheimer's Treatment Goal Found
Johns Hopkins researchers identified a new target for treating Alzheimer’s disease by focusing on a protein that produces tiny amounts of hydrogen sulfide in healthy brain cells. The gas that gives rotten eggs their signature smell also protects brain cells from damage, and the researchers told The Baltimore Sun that you can get more of it from eating foods like broccoli and garlic. (Hille, 1/12)
STATE WATCH
AP: Massachusetts Enacts Safety Reforms At Assisted Living Facilities After A Deadly Fire
Massachusetts is enacting a series of safety reforms at assisted living facilities including increased inspections and better access to records following a fire last year that killed 10 residents, the governor announced Monday. The recommendations, detailed in a report from the Assisted Living Residents or ARL commission tasked with reviewing the sector, call for annual inspection signed off by the local fire department, board of health and building inspector. It also calls for annual update and review of emergency plans and quarterly emergency exercises with all staff and annual evacuation drills. (Casey, 1/12)
Modern Healthcare: Low Medicaid Rates Slowing Patient Transfers To Nursing Homes
Hospitals are having trouble discharging patients to nursing homes as those operators receive skimpier reimbursements from state Medicaid programs. Some companies are taking fewer Medicaid patients and more patients covered by higher-paying, fee-for-service Medicare or by private insurance. Others are considering adding special clinical services that provide higher reimbursements for more medically complex patients. (Eastabrook, 1/12)
San Francisco Chronicle: California Medi-Cal Halts GLP-1 Obesity Drug Coverage
Many low-income Californians prescribed wildly popular weight loss drugs lost their coverage for the medications at the start of the new year. Health officials are recommending diet and exercise as alternatives to heavily advertised weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound, advice experts say is unrealistic. (Thompson, 1/12)
PUBLIC HEALTH
Bloomberg: Heart Failure Deaths Have Accelerated In US Since Covid Pandemic
The Covid pandemic didn’t just kill people directly. It appears to have accelerated a long-brewing reversal in US heart failure deaths, with mortality climbing faster since 2020 after years of decline, new research shows. The increases have been most pronounced among younger adults and Black Americans, pointing to disruptions in care and worsening conditions such as diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure that intensified during the health emergency, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. (Gale, 1/12)
