Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: On The Hook For Uninsured Residents, Counties Now Wonder How They’ll Pay
In 2013, before the Affordable Care Act helped millions get health insurance, California’s Placer County provided limited health care to some 3,400 uninsured residents who couldn’t afford to see a doctor. For several years, that number has been zero in the predominantly white, largely rural county stretching from Sacramento’s eastern suburbs to the shores of Lake Tahoe.The trend could be short-lived. (Mai-Duc and Boyd-Barrett, 1/6)
KFF Health News: Older Americans Quit Weight-Loss Drugs In Droves
Year after year, Mary Bucklew strategized with a nurse practitioner about losing weight. “We tried exercise,” like walking 35 minutes a day, she recalled. “And 39,000 different diets.” But 5 pounds would come off and then invariably reappear, said Bucklew, 75, a public transit retiree in Ocean View, Delaware. Nothing seemed to make much difference — until 2023, when her body mass index slightly exceeded 40, the threshold for severe obesity. (Span, 1/6)
VACCINES
The Hill: Sen. Bill Cassidy Rips RFK Jr. Vaccine Schedule Change, Says It's 'Based On No Scientific Input'
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who cast a critical vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, on Monday blasted the reduction of the childhood immunization schedule by Kennedy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC announced Monday it would be reducing the number of recommended vaccines for children from 17 to 11, putting the U.S. in line with that of other developed countries like Denmark, a nation which anti-vaccine skeptics and critics often cite as a model to be emulated. (Choi, 1/5)
MORE FROM HHS
Stat: Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Blocking NIH Cap On Indirect Costs
Federal appeals court judges on Monday upheld a lower court’s ruling preventing the National Institutes of Health from cutting billions of dollars in support for research overhead at universities, academic medical centers, and other grantee institutions. (Wosen, 1/5)
Healthcare Dive: 340B Rebate Pilot Put On Hold In Temporary Win For Hospitals
A federal judge halted a controversial drug discount pilot over the holiday break, determining that the HHS didn’t adequately consider the consequences for safety-net hospitals in a setback for the Trump administration and for drugmakers. The pilot set to take effect on Jan. 1 would have allowed drugmakers to divvy out savings to providers in the 340B drug discount program through post-sale rebates instead of upfront discounts. (Pifer, 1/5)
AP: HHS Authorized To Resume Sharing Some Personal Medicaid Data With Deportation Officers
The nation’s health department starting Monday can resume sharing the personal data of certain Medicaid enrollees with deportation officials, according to a federal judge’s ruling, in a blow to states that had sued the administration over privacy concerns. But the judge’s decision, issued last Monday, strictly limits the scope of data from the 22 plaintiff states that can be shared — for now only allowing the agency to hand over basic biographical information about immigrants residing in the United States illegally. (Swenson, 1/5)
The Washington Post: Expanded Cervical Cancer Screenings To Be Covered By Most Private Insurance
The Department of Health and Human Services is endorsing self-collected vaginal samples for cervical cancer screening and requiring most private insurance plans to cover testing without cost sharing. The Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency within HHS, announced updated cervical cancer screening guidelines Monday that expand screening options to include self-collection to test for human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted infection that causes nearly all cervical cancer cases. The new guidelines also aim to lower out-of-pocket costs for screening that could deter people from getting care. (Chiu, 1/5)
CNN: Hair-Straightening Products: FDA Misses Deadline On Proposed Ban On Formaldehyde
The US Food and Drug Administration has missed its latest deadline to propose banning formaldehyde and certain formaldehyde-releasing chemicals from hair-straightening products, often used by Black women. (Howard, 1/5)
The New York Times: Kennedy Set To Release New Nutrition Guidelines
He has promised a major shake-up of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Here’s what experts are watching for. (Callahan, 1/6)
MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
AP: EPA Says It Will Propose Drinking Water Limit For Chemical In Explosives
The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday said it would propose a drinking water limit for perchlorate, a harmful chemical in rockets and other explosives, but also said doing so wouldn’t significantly benefit public health and that it was acting only because a court ordered it. The agency said it will seek input on how strict the limit should be for perchlorate, which is particularly dangerous for infants, and require utilities to test. (Phillis, 1/5)
The Hill: MAHA Movement Rejoices As Pesticide Rule Removed
A government funding bill released Monday excludes a controversial pesticides provision, marking a win for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement for at least the time being. The provision in question is a wonky one: It would seek to prevent pesticides from carrying warnings on their label of health effects beyond those recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (Frazin, 1/5)
WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS
The (Santa Clarita Valley) Signal: Wegovy Lots Recalled After Hair Detected In A Prefilled Syringe
Multiple lots of weight-loss medication Wegovy were recalled by pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk because hair was found in a prefilled syringe, according to two notices published by the Food and Drug Administration last week. (Phillips, 1/5)
OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS
CNN: Flu Reaches Highest Levels In The US In 25 Years
Flu continues to bring misery across the US, with all but four states showing high or very high levels of activity as a new virus strain called subclade K continues to spread. By another measure – visits to the doctor for fever plus a cough or sore throat, which are common flu symptoms – the US is at its highest level of respiratory illness since at least the 1997-98 flu season, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Goodman, 1/5)
Stat: Flu Season 2026: Welcome To The Winter Of Subclade K
Australia’s 2025 flu season lasted weeks longer than it normally does. Hong Kong’s hit so early that the rollout of seasonal flu shots hadn’t yet started. New York has reported record-breaking flu hospitalizations for the past two weeks. Welcome to the winter of subclade K. (Branswell, 1/6)
CIDRAP: South Carolina Measles Total Climbs To 188
South Carolina health officials today said the state now has 188 cases of measles, 185 of which are associated with a growing outbreak in the Upstate region linked to elementary schools with low vaccination rates. As of late last week, 223 people were in quarantine for measles exposure. (Soucheray, 1/5)
MedPage Today: Parking Lot Triage: What A Pediatrician Is Seeing Amid Measles Outbreak
Three days after Christmas, Deborah Greenhouse, MD, of Columbia, South Carolina, voiced her frustration on social media about the measles outbreak in her state: "Things that I can't believe I am doing as a pediatrician on a Sunday morning in December 2025: Triaging patients with fever and rash in my office parking lot to avoid bringing a child inside who might expose everyone in our waiting rooms to measles. And yet here we are ..." (Dotinga, 1/5)
CIDRAP: In Utero COVID Exposure Linked To Brain Changes, Developmental Delays, Anxiety, And Depression
In utero SARS-CoV-2 exposure may predispose children to altered brain volumes, impaired cognition, and internalizing emotional problems such as anxiety and depression, researchers from Children’s National Hospital and George Washington University write in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. The team enrolled 39 mother-baby pairs in Washington, DC, who had been exposed to COVID-19 during pregnancy from 2020 to 2022 and compared them with 103 normative pairs from before the pandemic (2016 to 2019). None of the infected women had been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. (Van Beusekom, 1/5)
CIDRAP: Study Outlines Recurring Symptom Clusters That Define Long COVID
Long COVID is best understood as a collection of overlapping symptoms rather than a single post-viral condition, suggests a new systemic review published in eClinicalMedicine. The review identified the main symptom patterns associated with long COVID, including neurologic, respiratory, olfactory and/or gustatory, cardiopulmonary, and fatigue. (Bergeson, 1/5)
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
Undark: Medical Examiners Group Issues Warning On Stillbirth Test
The Nation's largest organization for medical examiners has issued a warning about a controversial, centuries-old forensic test that has contributed to cases in which pregnant women have been charged with murder. The premise behind the lung float test is simple: If a baby was born alive and then died, air from its first breaths would cause its lungs to float in a jar with water. If the baby was stillborn, the lack of air in the lungs would cause them to sink. But the many critics of the test have long labeled it junk science and drawn parallels between the test and witch trials, where women were deemed witches based on whether they floated or sank. (Eldeib, 1/6)
ProPublica: Her Parenting Time Was Restricted After A Positive Drug Test. By Federal Standards, It Would've Been Negative.
Kaitlin spent the first weeks of her newborn son’s life in a panic. The hospital where she gave birth in October 2022 had administered a routine drug test, and a nurse informed her the lab had confirmed the presence of opiates. Child welfare authorities opened an investigation. Months later, after searching her home and interviewing her older child and ex-husband, the agency dropped its investigation, having found no evidence of abuse or neglect, or of drug use. (Hines, 1/6)
St. Louis Public Radio: Planned Parenthood Closes Rolla Facility, Shifts To Telehealth
Planned Parenthood in Rolla has closed its brick-and-mortar location and will no longer serve patients in person. The health care organization shut its Rolla offices at the start of 2026, citing attacks on health care access and funding, including Missouri lawmakers blocking Medicaid patients from accessing care from Planned Parenthood. It will now only serve patients online. (Ahl, 1/6)
Katic Couric Media: Menopause Bills In California, Michigan, And Others To Watch
To date, an unprecedented 19 states have introduced upward of three dozen bills to improve menopause care and treatment; eight of those bills are now law. (Weiss-Wolf, 1/5)
MedPage Today: Full-Term Baby Delivered After Surprise Abdominal Ectopic Pregnancy
Maternal-fetal medicine doctors regularly care for high-risk pregnancies and rare complications, but a California medical team saw an exceedingly unique case: a healthy baby born at term from an abdominal pregnancy during which the mom didn't know she was pregnant due to a known massive ovarian cyst. (Robertson, 1/5)
NURSING HOMES AND ELDER CARE
AP: Victims Of Pennsylvania Nursing Home Blast File Negligence Lawsuit
Four people hurt when an explosion ripped through a Pennsylvania nursing home two weeks ago sued the facility and a natural gas utility on Monday, claiming their negligence was to blame. Two workers at Bristol Health & Rehab Center LLC, a resident of the suburban Philadelphia facility and a contractor who happened to be there when the blast occurred on Dec. 23 filed the lawsuit. ... The lawsuit filed in Philadelphia court claims the defendants “were aware of a gas leak in the building and failed to take the steps necessary to evacuate the building, fix the leak and protect the residents, workers and others that were exposed to the horrific blast.” (Scolforo, 1/5)
AP: Abuse, Neglect Common In Michigan Nursing Homes -- And No One Is Coming To Help
The plea was desperate: Help! Lorena Brown gasped for air on Sept. 12, 2022, turning blue, at the SKLD Muskegon nursing home. ... The former foster parent and cosmetologist is one of nearly three dozen residents to die of suspected neglect or abuse at Michigan nursing homes in the past four years, according to a Bridge Michigan review of more than 3,100 state and federal inspection records and court documents. ... In all, homes have been fined $21.5 million over the past three years and been denied a total of 6,451 days of Medicaid reimbursements. (Erb and Schuster, 1/5)
AUTISM
MedPage Today: Autism Therapy Becomes Big Business For Private Equity
Private equity firms acquired more than 500 autism therapy centers across the U.S. in the past decade, an analysis showed. Between 2015 and 2024, 574 sites that delivered autism services in 42 states were bought by private equity, the result of 147 acquisitions, reported Daniel Arnold, PhD, of the School of Public Health at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and colleagues. Nearly 80% of these acquisitions occurred between 2018 and 2022. Private equity investors appeared more likely to enter states with a higher autism prevalence and more generous state autism insurance mandates, they wrote in JAMA Pediatrics. (George, 1/5)
PHARMA AND TECH
Modern Healthcare: Corewell Health, Quest Diagnostics Form Joint Venture
Corewell Health and independent laboratory company Quest Diagnostics have completed their agreement to form a joint venture providing laboratory services. The venture, Diagnostic Lab of Michigan will be based at the Corewell Health Southfield Center in Southfield, Michigan. The facility is slated to open in the first quarter of 2027. (DeSilva, 1/5)
Newsweek: Simple Finger Prick Test Can Diagnose Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s disease affects millions worldwide—but confirming a diagnosis is far from simple. Doctors currently rely on costly brain scans or invasive spinal fluid tests to identify the condition—methods that can be stressful, time-consuming and out of reach for many patients. Now, researchers say a simpler approach could be on the horizon: just a quick prick of a patient’s fingertip might one day help doctors detect the disease, which affects an estimated 7.2 million Americans age 65 and older. (Notarantonio, 1/5)
The Washington Post: Stimulants Help Children With ADHD, But Not In The Way Scientists Thought
The stimulants Ritalin and Adderall have been used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for decades, but research shows they don’t act on the brain’s attention circuitry as had long been assumed. Instead, the medications primarily target the brain’s reward and wakefulness centers, according to a new study published in the journal Cell. The research, which used brain imaging data from almost 5,800 children ages 8 to 11, also pointed toward the important role that lack of sleep plays in the disorder. (Johnson, 1/6)
The Baltimore Sun: Researchers Re-Grow Cartilage In Mice With Arthritis
Blocking a protein linked to aging helped older mice regrow knee cartilage without using stem cells, research from Stanford University in California shows. Blocking the protein 15-PGDH also increased older animals’ muscle mass and endurance, they reported. (Hille, 1/5)
Stat: AI Started Making Drug-Like Antibodies. When Will It Revolutionize Biopharma?
One day, probably in the next year or two, a company will claim it has put the first artificial-intelligence-designed antibody in the clinic. But the industry is divided on what “AI-designed” really means, and how close we are to the technology truly being able to design a medicine. (Trang, 1/6)
The Washington Post: The Best (And Weirdest) New Gadgets We Found At CES 2026
A smart toilet that can send health alerts and a portable, battery-powered food allergen detector are among the new gadgets thronging Las Vegas for the CES consumer tech show. (Velazco, 1/6)
STATE WATCH
Los Angeles Times: Teachers Have A Right To Tell Parents If Their Child Might Be LGBTQ+, Federal Judge Rules
School workers can alert parents if their child has questions about gender, but officials can't order staff to alert parents. It's a confusing new legal landscape. (Blume, 1/5)
The Baltimore Sun: Health Care Advocates, Officials Plan Campaign To Boost 'Easy Enrollment'
With Maryland residents facing increased health insurance costs and many outright cancelling their coverage, state officials and health advocates hope that promoting an existing program will help ease the burden. Maryland officials and health care advocates announced on Monday a $100,000 media advocacy campaign for the state’s Easy Enrollment health insurance program, betting that increased awareness will lead to broader coverage. (Mause, 1/5)
The CT Mirror: After Years Of Delays, DSS Call Center Wait Times Show Improvement
For years, Connecticut residents who receive benefits through the Department of Social Services have dealt with arduous wait times whenever they need support from the agency’s call centers. Bobby Berriault, who receives SNAP food assistance and Medicaid benefits, said he spent nearly two hours on hold one day in October trying to resolve a billing issue. (Golvala, 1/5)
AP: Detroit Joins Michigan Program That Gives Cash To Expectant Moms
A program that provides cash to help expectant mothers cope with bills, expenses and the high cost of taking care of children is coming to Detroit. Democratic Mayor Mary Sheffield announced Monday that Michigan State University’s Rx Kids program is expected to open in the city within the first 100 days of her taking office. Sheffield was elected in November and was installed last week as Detroit’s first female mayor. The program gives a one-time allocation of $1,500 to expectant mothers during pregnancy. That’s followed by $500 per month throughout the child’s first six months after birth. (Williams, 1/5)
LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH
The Baltimore Sun: Sugar Substitute Thought Safe Increases Stroke Risk
Long thought safe, the sugar substitute erythritol could increase your risk of stroke. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder found that the sweetener impairs certain functions of blood vessels that would otherwise help ease stroke risks. (Hille, 1/5)
The Wall Street Journal: What A Digital Detox Can Do For You
Move over weight loss and dry January. There’s a new popular New Year’s resolution in town: Enter the digital detox. Some people are aiming to reduce overall screen-time or social-media use (including yours truly). Others want to carve out regular no-screen days—OK, maybe more like time periods—or days or retreats. (Reddy, 1/1)
The Wall Street Journal: An Eyelid Lift In Your 30s? Why Younger Women Are Getting ‘Blephs’
Blepharoplasties were once reserved for patients in their 60s with droopy lids and impaired vision. Now they’re the hottest plastic surgery ask for the under-40 crowd. (Valdesolo, 1/1)
