Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Tuesday, May 26, 2026
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: Cheaper, Alternative Health Plans Are Having A Moment, But Critics Urge Caution
When Melanie Miller saw that her health insurance premium payment was set to nearly triple to $914 a month this year, she stopped shopping on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.This story also ran on CBS News. It can be republished for free. The 59-year-old retired teacher, who recently moved from Ohio to Michigan, now pays $341 a month for a pair of plans, one that covers routine and urgent care and another that pays fixed amounts for hospital stays. Neither meets federal standards for comprehensive coverage. (Kwon, 5/26)
KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘On Air’: Journalists Distill News On Ebola, Licensing Midwives, And California’s Budget
Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed the diversion of a Detroit-bound plane to Canada over Ebola concerns on CBS News’ CBS Mornings on May 21. Gounder also discussed how the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak has been declared a global health emergency on Fox’s LiveNOW on May 18. (5/23)
HEALTHCARE COSTS AND COVERAGE
Modern Healthcare: PacificSource To Quit ACA Exchanges, Exit Montana Market
PacificSource Health Plans is the latest health insurance company to pull out of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 marketplaces. The nonprofit insurer will not offer exchange plans in Idaho, Montana, Oregon or Washington next year. PacificSource Health Plans will entirely leave Montana, where it currently covers 42,000 members in Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored and marketplace plans. The insurer has more than 500,000 members in those four states. About 30,000 are exchange enrollees, according to the consulting firm Evensun Health. (Tepper, 5/22)
Politico: RFK Jr., States At Odds Over Cause Of Obamacare’s Enrollment Declines
Both the Trump administration and state officials agree on the numerical fact: People this year are dropping their Obamacare coverage — to the tune of 1.2 million people out of a total enrollment of 24.3 million as of March, according to the latest federal data. But they are at odds over why. (King and Hooper, 5/25)
Modern Healthcare: Hospital Pricing Under Fire From GOP, Insurers And Employers
Hospitals are under attack in Washington, and not just by their longtime foes in the insurance and drug industries. Those political powerhouses have indeed stepped up campaigns targeting hospitals, and all sides have ramped up spending on lobbyists. But increasingly others, including employers and conservative groups, have weighed in. Lawmakers in GOP-run Washington appear to be listening. (McAuliff, 5/22)
EBOLA OUTBREAK
Politico: CDC Says Green Card Holders Who Were Recently In Countries Where Ebola Is Spreading Can’t Reenter US
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding its power to prevent individuals from entering the U.S. “in the interest of public health” — including lawful permanent U.S. residents. An interim final rule, released Friday, cites the current Ebola outbreak as the reason for the change. Lawful permanent residents who have been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan within the last 21 days are now banned from entering the U.S. through mid-June, the agency said. (Gardner, 5/22)
ABC News: Why Travel Restrictions May Have Unintended Consequences As US Bars Some Visitors Amid Ebola Outbreak
Some public health specialists told ABC News that monitoring travel exposures is an important part of containing and tracing the spread of a disease. However, they warned that broader bans can have unintended consequences that may negatively impact global public health and hinder containment efforts that should be considered when making these decisions. (Cobern, 5/23)
The Washington Post: Doctor Evacuated For Ebola Exposure Describes Life In Congo, Quarantine
Murmurs of a “casket disease” had already begun by mid-May, as patients began to die in waves. Patrick LaRochelle, an American missionary physician, was 20 minutes away from getting on a plane out of the Democratic Republic of Congo, part of his journey with his wife and three kids back home to the United States for a summer visit. Then he got a WhatsApp message: Ebola was here. (Weber, 5/26)
The Hill: Trump’s Former COVID Adviser: US Equipped To Handle Response To Ebola Outbreak
A former adviser to President Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic said Sunday that the U.S. is equipped to handle an Ebola outbreak. “The U.S. right now does not have a confirmed head of the CDC, it does not have a confirmed head of the FDA, doesn’t have a confirmed Surgeon General. Is the U.S. prepared to deal with an outbreak of Ebola or any other infectious disease, if it comes to our shores?” CBS News’s Nancy Cordes asked Dr. Deborah Birx on “Face the Nation.” (Suter, 5/24)
ABC News: Ebola Outbreak In DRC Spreads, With More Than 900 Reported Cases: Officials
The Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is "spreading rapidly," according to the head of the World Health Organization. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned during a Friday press briefing that the U.N. health agency has upgraded its risk assessment for spread at the national level from "high" to "very high." At the regional level, the risk remains "high" while the global level is still "low." (Winsor, Kekatos, and Benadjaoud, 5/24)
NBC News: 3 Red Cross Volunteers Die Of Ebola
Three Red Cross volunteers have died, believed to have contracted the Ebola virus during a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in March, the organization said. “At the time of the intervention, the community was not aware of the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak, and the outbreak had not yet been identified. They are among the first known victims of the outbreak,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said Saturday. (Lenthang, 5/23)
NBC News: DR Congo’s Neighbors Impose Covid-Style Measures In Push To Limit Ebola’s Spread
Health authorities and aid agencies across east and southern Africa are reinforcing screening at key crossings and scaling up preparedness planning, as officials warn that ongoing cross-border movement continues to present a risk of further cases. (Clayton, 5/25)
HANTAVIRUS OUTBREAK
Axios: Kennedy Offers Legal Shield To Develop Hantavirus Treatment
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is offering to shield drugmakers from legal liability as an incentive to develop treatments for the Andes hantavirus that caused a deadly outbreak on a cruise ship this month. (Bettelheim, 5/26)
NBC News: Spanish Government Confirms New Case Of Hantavirus
The Spanish government said Monday it has confirmed a new case of hantavirus connected to the cruise ship MV Hondius, which became the center of an outbreak that killed three people earlier this month. A Spanish national who has been in preventive quarantine at a hospital in Madrid tested positive for the virus, the Health Ministry said in a statement. (Silva, 5/25)
The Hill: WHO: Hantavirus Outbreak Is 'Stable'
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday said the hantavirus “situation is stable for now.” Tedros provided an update stating that WHO has reported 12 cases of hantavirus and three deaths, with no other confirmed deaths since May 2. The outbreak is believed to have originated from South America after infected travelers boarded the cruise ship MV Hondius earlier this month. (Mancini, 5/24)
VACCINES
NBC News: No Child Deaths Definitively Linked To Covid Shots, FDA Says
No child deaths have been definitively linked to Covid vaccines, according to a report from the Food and Drug Administration that was quietly made public last week. The analysis comes nearly six months after former FDA vaccine chief Dr. Vinay Prasad said, without releasing evidence, that the agency had identified at least 10 previously unreported child deaths tied to the vaccines. (Lovelace Jr., 5/22)
Politico: Relief Group Is Phasing Out Vaccines RFK Jr. Believes Are Unsafe
An international relief group that provides vaccines to poor countries says it’s phasing out some vaccines that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes are unsafe. The health secretary has cited Gavi’s use of the shots in blocking $600 million in U.S. funding. In a bid to get Kennedy to relent, the group on Thursday offered to speed the transition to shots that do not contain thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative. (Paun, 5/22)
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Stat: What Prompted, And What's Holding Up, An Agency For Men's Health
Just before he was sworn in as assistant secretary for health at the end of 2025, Admiral Brian Christine — a urologist whose practice treated primarily male patients — talked at an FDA panel on testosterone about a series of alarming statistics: Male life expectancy is close to seven years shorter than women’s; men have higher mortality rates in 10 of the leading causes of death; and they make up the vast majority of deaths by suicide. (Merelli, 5/22)
Stat: Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas Is Defying Expectations
People in the food world didn’t know what to expect when the Trump administration appointed a little-known Florida attorney as the FDA’s top food official in 2025. (Lawrence, 5/26)
MILITARY HEALTH
Military.com: Robert Irvine’s 23-Year Fight To Fix Military Food Is Finally Paying Off
The Army spends roughly $3 billion annually on food procurement and has been expanding a campus-style dining modernization effort designed to improve quality, access and flexibility for soldiers. Robert Irvine says the transformation is long overdue. (Lindsay, 5/25)
AUTISM
The New York Times: Short Naps, Long Hours: How Autism Clinics Squeeze Medicaid Dollars Out Of Preschoolers
On a sunny Wednesday morning last month, dozens of preschoolers filed into a Compleat Kidz autism clinic in Concord, N.C. One wore light-up sneakers. Another had a Spider-Man lunchbox. They settled into tiny green cubicles, each accompanied by a staff member, and started their work. A decade ago, this Charlotte suburb had no clinics providing therapy to children with autism. Now it has 12. Inside this one, children buzzed with activity as they worked long sessions with therapists. One 6-year-old girl, exhausted after hours of therapy, fell fast asleep in her therapist’s lap. Soon, a supervisor, Stephen Schroeder, intervened. (Kliff and Sanger-Katz, 5/23)
The New York Times: 5 Takeaways From A Times Investigation On Autism Therapy Clinics
Over the past decade, thousands of autism clinics have opened across the country. The growth has been fueled by rising autism diagnoses and a federal requirement that all state Medicaid programs pay for the treatment. The industry has recently received significant investment from private equity firms. A New York Times investigation found that the clinics often prioritize billing opportunities in ways that may harm children and overcharge the government. Many overprescribe hours, and some discourage parents from enrolling their children in school. (Kliff and Sanger-Katz, 5/23)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Modern Healthcare: Travel Nursing Market Steadies As Profitability Issues Persist
The travel nurse market is normalizing and several key performance metrics appear to be stabilizing above pre-Covid pandemic levels, according to the annual SIA NATHO Travel Nurse Benchmarking Survey. At the same time, profitability remains under pressure even as bill rates hold relatively steady. Overall, the data suggests the market is no longer in sharp decline but is instead moving into a more stable and operationally disciplined environment. (Fullilove, 5/22)
AP: State Asylums' Psychiatric Records Are Often Hard To Get
Breta Meria Conole was in a state psychiatric hospital for more than two decades. But the reason why is a family mystery. Debby Hannigan, her great grandniece, tried for years to access Conole’s medical records, because she thought they might hold clues to mental health issues in her family, including her oldest daughter’s depression. Hannigan twice wrote to the state of New York for the records. The second time she included a supporting note from her daughter’s therapist, who said the details would help “to know their family medical history better.” Both times she was turned away. (Stobbe, 5/24)
NPR: Mental Health Therapists Who Use AI To Take Notes Face Questions About Trust
For two years, Molly Quinn trusted her therapist with things she hadn't told anyone else. So when her therapist mentioned trying an artificial intelligence tool to take notes, Quinn didn't immediately refuse. The 31-year-old librarian from Fayetteville, Ark., asked to research it first. She wanted to understand where her words would go — whether they would stay local or be processed somewhere in the cloud. (Johnston, 5/26)
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: Ohio Therapists See Clawbacks Paused, Pay Reduced
The first thing Ohio therapists saw was the bill. It came from CareSource, Ohio’s largest Medicaid managed care plan, which covers more than 1.4 million members. In April, the Dayton-based organization told some behavioral health providers that it had been paying them too much for treating Medicaid patients — and that the therapists would have to pay the money back. (Washington, 5/25)
The Baltimore Sun: Eastern Shore Receives $3.1 Million Federal Healthcare Funding
Communities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore have received more than $3 million in federal funding to assist with clinic staffing and other health care needs. The $3,139,017 in funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced Sunday by U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, will go to Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties. (Hubbard, 5/24)
Carolina Public Press: UNCW Gets UNC System Blessing To Continue Medical School Planning
The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors voted Thursday to let UNC-Wilmington move forward with the planning process for its proposed medical school. It’s the next step — though an unusual one — in the university’s effort to mend healthcare inequity by increasing access in Southeastern North Carolina. (Denning, 5/24)
The Washington Post: Weight-Loss Compounder Hims & Hers Is Shifting To Wellness And Longevity
The next phase of Andrew Dudum’s quest to change how Americans get their health care is taking shape behind the walls of a nondescript factory, tucked off a side street in Silicon Valley. As co-founder and CEO of telehealth company Hims & Hers, Dudum has helped lead the tech industry’s encroachment on traditional medicine, using social media to sell popular prescription drugs over the internet. (Rowland, 5/24)
PHARMA AND TECH
The New York Times: One-And-Done Heart Disease Prevention? Scientists Show It May Be Possible
In a small, preliminary study, an experimental gene-editing treatment dramatically lowered cholesterol levels, perhaps permanently, after just one infusion, scientists reported on Monday. If confirmed in larger studies, researchers hope the findings may lead to a one-and-done way to prevent heart disease in large numbers of people. Most gene therapies target rare diseases, but cardiovascular disease kills nearly 800,000 Americans a year. (Kolata, 5/25)
Fox News: Alzheimer's Drug Could Reduce Alcohol Withdrawal Damage, Researchers Say
An investigational dementia drug may also ease alcohol withdrawal by calming the brain inflammation linked to addiction and relapse. That’s according to researchers at the University of Kentucky, who studied an experimental medication called MW150 that targets a brain inflammation pathway known as p38α MAPK. The drug, which has not yet been approved, is designed to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. (Rudy, 5/25)
The Washington Post: Weight-Loss Drugs Pose Dangers To People With Eating Disorders
Stevee Williams, a restaurant manager in Houston, was preparing for her sister’s wedding when anxieties bubbled up about how she would look in her bridesmaid dress. She was diagnosed with anorexia when she was 17 and her struggle with eating never left. This time, at 27, she turned to a new tool to control her appetite, one of the GLP-1 drugs fueling a national weight-loss craze. On an online site promising easy prescriptions, she typed that she was 150 pounds (she wasn’t) and indicated she did not “feel well enough to get up and move around” (which also wasn’t true). Then she entered her credit card information. (Rowland and Eunjung Cha, 5/23)
San Francisco Chronicle: California’s ‘Plan B For STIs’ Is Working — With One Exception
A drug meant to prevent sexually transmitted infections if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex appears to be working well against syphilis and chlamydia, but within a year of making the therapy widely available in California, it no longer protects against gonorrhea, according to a new Kaiser study. DoxyPEP, a dose of antibiotics sometimes framed as Plan B for STIs, cut the risk of getting syphilis or chlamydia by up to 60%, according to the Kaiser study, which looked at roughly 25,000 members in Southern California. But it had no effect against gonorrhea, and there are signs that doxyPEP may be contributing to drug resistance in the bacteria. (Allday, 5/25)
The Washington Post: How Scientists Found A Weakness In One Of The Deadliest ‘Undruggable’ Cancers
For decades, one of the deadliest cancers had an Achilles’ heel lying in plain sight. Pancreatic cancer is an exquisitely cruel diagnosis, leaving only 13 percent of people alive after five years. But in the early 1980s, scientists discovered a weakness — a mutated protein called KRAS — that spurred the aggressive growth and spread an array of tumors. In pancreatic cancer, it would turn out to be a key driver of nearly every case. There was just one problem. The KRAS protein they needed to block was flat and smooth, without the crevices and cracks, pockets and sockets that a drug needs to get a toehold. (Johnson, 5/24)
WUFT: Waka, Waka, Waka, Waka: Scientists Trick Bacteria Into Eating Tumors
Canadian researchers have figured out a way to engineer bacteria into chewing up tumors. The little microbes eat and eat until they grow big enough to take over the unwanted mass. (Hagmajer, 5/26)
Boise State Public Radio News: Largest Study Of Firefighting-Related Cancer Nears 50K Enrollees
The largest study of firefighter-related cancer is expected to soon top 50,000 volunteer enrollees. Growth has been strong over the last year despite a great deal of uncertainty last spring over the future of the ambitious effort. In April 2025, the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer (NFR) was shut down indefinitely in the wake of massive Trump administration layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services. (Woodhouse, 5/25)
STATE WATCH
AP: Officials Lift Evacuation Orders For Some California Residents Living Near A Damaged Chemical Tank
Emergency officials lifted an evacuation order for some of the people who live near a damaged tank containing a hazardous chemical in Southern California after temperatures inside the tank fell enough to eliminate the risk of a catastrophic explosion. While there’s no longer a risk of a major explosion at the GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems plant in Garden Grove, there’s still a chance for a smaller blast or a fire, Orange County Fire Authority division chief Craig Covey said during a news conference on Monday. (Willingham and Stengle, 5/26)
ABC News: Health Officials Warn Patients Of Potential HIV, Hepatitis Exposure At Philadelphia Dental Office
Health officials in Philadelphia are recommending certain patients of a dental clinic accused of following "unsanitary practices" get tested for hepatitis and HIV due to potential exposures from April 2025 to May 2026, the city's Department of Public Health said in a statement this week. Officials on Wednesday identified the dental clinic in Center City Philadelphia as Smiles at Rittenhouse Square, also called Smiles on the Square, and said it is now closed due to the dentist's temporary suspension. (Abdelmalek and Cobern, 5/22)
NBC News: First Responders Exposed To Fentanyl In Deadly New Mexico Incident, Officials Say
First responders were exposed to fentanyl and sickened after arriving at a rural New Mexico home earlier this week to investigate a possible overdose that left three people dead, officials said Friday. They found four people unconscious at the home in Mountainair, east of Albuquerque, and two of them were declared dead at the scene, officials said. (Li and Morrison, 5/22)
Grist and States Newsroom: A Deadly Bacteria Is Creeping Up The Atlantic Coast. How Worried Should You Be?
Bailey Magers and Sunil Kumar cut strange figures on Pensacola Beach. Bags of disinfectant solution surrounded them on the white sand; their gloved hands juggled test tubes while layers of rubber and plastic shielded their skin from the elements. As the two organized their seawater samples on the popular Florida shoreline last August, an older woman wearing a swimsuit walked over to ask what they were doing. (Teirstein, 5/23)
Chicago Tribune: EPA Announces $295 Million To Remove Illinois Lead Pipes
Illinois will receive $295 million to address lead in drinking water as part of a $921 million regional investment, the federal government has announced. The move is one of many actions under the Federal Lead Action Plan, launched in President Donald Trump’s first term and aligned with his administration’s newer campaign to “Make America Healthy Again.” (Perez, 5/24)
ProPublica: Albuquerque Officials Move To Address Surge In Citations Related To Homelessness
Judges, state public defenders and city officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are taking steps to curb a cycle of missed court dates and arrest warrants for crimes related to living outside that has led to a county jail population that’s about half homeless. Eighteen months ago, judges in Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, noticed an increase in charges related to homelessness — including for obstructing a sidewalk, unlawful camping and unlawful storage of personal property. (Santa Cruz, 5/26)
The Colorado Sun: How Can Colorado Help Kids Facing Mental Health Struggles? These Teens Have Ideas For The Next Governor.
The pressure to be perfect has stalked recent high school graduate Swarali Dhamal since she was in middle school, at once motivating and suffocating her while consuming more of her hours both in and outside of school. Recently, that nagging voice telling her to be flawless has grown louder because of carefully curated posts by friends and influencers flooding her social media feed. (Breunlin, 5/26)
Verite News: A Property Tax Trap For Senior And Disabled Homeowners Will Soon Be Fixed
Housing affordability is a serious and persistent issue across neighborhoods, incomes, and age groups in Orleans Parish and across the state. Even for longtime homeowners with fixed rate mortgages, rising insurance and property taxes are reducing affordability. Fortunately, one longstanding statewide policy gives vulnerable homeowners an opportunity to freeze their property taxes. Currently, more than 18,000 Orleans Parish households have age or disability freezes specifically designed to keep assessments from going up. (Pealer, 5/25)
SPORTS AND HEALTH
The New York Times: Kyle Busch Died After Complications From Sepsis, Severe Pneumonia, Family Says
Kyle Busch suffered from severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis, “resulting in rapid and overwhelming associated complications,” the NASCAR driver’s family said in a statement Saturday. The statement was based on a medical evaluation provided to the family, it said. (Gluck, 5/23)
People.com: An Expert Explains Why Sepsis Is So Deadly
Especially among younger people, the onset can be sudden and the symptoms hard to recognize, says Dr. Todd Rice, professor of medicine and director of the intensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Rice, who has not treated Busch and is not connected to his case, explains how an illness like pneumonia can cause sepsis, and why the condition can be so deadly, even for young, healthy people like Busch. (Finan, 5/25)
AGING
Fox News: Type Of Sitting May Predict Dementia Risk, 19-Year Study Reveals
The research, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in March, found that replacing mentally passive sedentary behavior with mentally active sedentary behavior was associated with a significant reduction in dementia risk. Mentally active sedentary behaviors could include reading, office work and other activities that keep the brain engaged while sitting, while mentally passive behaviors may include watching television or other low-engagement screen activities. (Margolis, 5/25)
