First Edition: Wednesday, April 1, 2026

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act Darkens Outlook For Government-Backed Clinics
Bluestem Health, a clinic that serves low-income and uninsured patients in Lincoln, Nebraska, has lost money for the last two years. And CEO Brad Meyer fears times will soon get worse for the clinic and its 21,000 patients. That’s because Nebraska is set to become the first state to require certain Medicaid enrollees to work or lose their coverage under new rules in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Galewitz, 4/1)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘Letters To The Editor’: Readers Sound Off On NIH Staff Cuts, Work Requirements, And More
‘The Federal Government’s Loss Is the County’s Gain’I wanted to thank Rachana Pradhan and Katheryn Houghton for their coverage of the loss of staff at the National Institutes of Health (“Six Federal Scientists Run Out by Trump Talk About the Work Left Undone,” March 6). In December 2024, I had accepted a tentative job offer for a dream job at NIH after eight years of being a federal contractor supporting data science work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Health Center and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases during the covid response, and later with the U.S. Agency for International Development, where I supported HIV program monitoring and response data visualization. (4/1)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute'
Jackie Fortiér reads the week’s news: Consumers know which party they blame after Congress failed to extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies. Plus, updated standards say seniors should aim for even lower blood pressure readings. (3/31)

LGBTQ+ HEALTH

Politico: Supreme Court Strikes Down Conversion Therapy Ban
States can’t ban so-called conversion therapy, aimed at changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, the Supreme Court has ruled. The justices ruled, 8-1, Tuesday that the First Amendment prohibits states from using their licensing power to limit the topics therapists and other professionals can discuss with their clients. “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court’s majority. (Gerstein, 3/31)

New Hampshire Public Radio: NH’s Conversation Therapy Ban In Doubt Following Supreme Court Ruling Striking Down Colorado Law 
A New Hampshire law that bans the practice of so-called “conversion therapy” for minors could be in doubt, following a decision by the Supreme Court Tuesday that found a similar law in Colorado is a violation of free speech. (Richardson, 3/31)

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: Ohio Bill Pressing For Statewide Conversion Therapy Ban Faces New Obstacles After SCOTUS Ruling 
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ youth makes an already uphill battle to outlaw the practice in Ohio even steeper, Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio said. (McGowan, 3/31)

ON CAPITOL HILL

Modern Healthcare: House Bill Would Cap Medicare Physician Pay Cuts At 2.5%
Think of it as preventive medicine for doctor pay. A bipartisan House bill that lawmakers plan to introduce this week would cap annual Medicare physician reimbursement cuts at 2.5% while giving regulators more leeway to set annual payment updates. The Provider Reimbursement Stability Act of 2025 is far from the Medicare payment system overhaul doctors have failed to win for years and it does not include a raise for 2027. (McAuliff, 3/31)

NBC News: White House Pushes Senate To Move Quickly On Casey Means Nomination
The White House is calling on the Senate to confirm Dr. Casey Means as U.S. surgeon general "without further delay," even as President Donald Trump signaled uncertainty about her path forward. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that he didn't know how Means was faring in the nomination process more than a month after her Senate confirmation hearing. "We have a lot of great candidates," he added. (Lovelace Jr., Kapur and Bendix, 3/31)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Stat: HHS Reorganizes Health IT Office To Focus On Policy Priorities 
The Trump administration is changing the name of the federal health IT office back to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The Tuesday announcement also reverts the organization of the office to focus on external IT coordination, instead of also overseeing Health and Human Services’ internal use of technology. (Trang, 3/31)

The New York Times: FDA Is Expected To Lift Restriction On Peptides, Heeding RFK Jr.’s Wishes
The Food and Drug Administration is moving toward allowing compounding pharmacies to produce more than a dozen injectable peptides that were banned because of potentially significant safety risks, according to a senior administration official. In 2023, 14 peptides were removed from a list of products that the F.D.A. allows compounding pharmacies to produce. The pharmacies tailor products for individual patients’ needs. The peptides had not been approved by the F.D.A. as safe or effective and, in recent years, the agency had noted that they were increasingly being marketed with unproved claims that they had cosmetic, anti-aging and disease-fighting benefits. (Jewett and Blum, 3/31)

AP: Judge Rules Trump Administration's Homeless Funding Changes Unlawful
A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically change the criteria to get tens of millions of dollars in funding to aid homeless people was unlawful. Several nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year accusing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of changing the rules for receiving $75 million to build housing for homeless families and individuals. The plaintiffs accused the Trump administration of issuing a new Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, for the Continuum of Care Builds program to better align with its social policies. (Casey, 4/1)

Modern Healthcare: Over 130 Hospitals Sue HHS Over Medicare DSH Payment Changes
More than 130 hospitals sued the Health and Human Services Department seeking to overturn a regulation that allegedly underpays them for treating Medicare patients. Hospitals in 16 states filed a complaint alleging HHS exceeded its legal authority when it finalized a 2023 rule that retroactively changed how the agency counts inpatient stays for Medicare Advantage patients in disproportionate share hospital payments. (Kacik, 3/31)

Modern Healthcare: CMS-Backed Mobile Clinics Aim To Expand Rural Healthcare Access
A mobile healthcare pilot could act as a roadmap for states looking to improve medical access in rural communities and for providers looking to increase revenues. Twenty-two states included mobile medical units in their plans for how to spend part of $50 billion in Rural Healthcare Transformation Program funds. To qualify for the money, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services required states to find ways to expand access to care in underserved areas through innovation. (Eastabrook, 3/31)

Stat: NIH Chief Bhattacharya Sparks Debate On Vannevar Bush's Legacy 
It is perhaps not surprising that the director of the National Institutes of Health would invoke the name of a man revered by scientists as the architect of a policy widely credited with driving the United States’ global supremacy in biomedical research. But Jay Bhattacharya’s claim over the weekend that the Trump administration is pursuing a vision articulated eight decades ago by that scientific leader, Vannevar Bush, has provoked pushback — even outrage — in scientific circles. (Oza, 4/1)

The Washington Post: Six Times More Federal Dollars Flow To Retirees Than Young People 
The federal government spends significantly more on retirees than any other age group in the United States, a sign of the breadth of Social Security and Medicare — and Americans’ determination to keep those programs going. Americans age 65 and older — generally part of the baby-boom generation or Silent Generation — received an estimated $2.7 trillion in federal outlays last year, six times more than the $449 billion for Americans under 26 years old. That ratio is only expected to grow as the population ages. (Lerman, 4/1)

VACCINES

CIDRAP: More People Requesting ‘Unvaccinated’ Blood For Themselves Or Their Children
A growing number of patients who need transfusions are asking for blood from unvaccinated donors, a difficult request to honor, given that blood centers don’t ask donors if they’ve been vaccinated and don’t label blood according to vaccinated status. These requests often delay care and, in some cases, harm patients’ health, according to a report published late last week in Transfusion. Health systems need to develop standardized policies, include counseling, to handle these requests, the report’s authors wrote. (Szabo, 3/31)

CNN: RFK Jr. Pledged To Fight Lyme Disease. Does That Include Supporting A Vaccine? 
As secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy has promised to take on Lyme disease, which is an even bigger problem now than it was 40 years ago. At a roundtable discussion he convened in December with patients, clinicians and researchers, he pledged greater support for improving diagnostics and treatment. (Tirrell, 3/31)

Bloomberg: New Study Tests Vaccine’s Potential To Block Fentanyl’s Deadly Effects
Biotech startup ARMR Sciences Inc. said it has begun a human trial of its anti-fentanyl vaccine in an early study that could one day lead to a inoculation offering months-long protection from the deadly respiratory effects of the powerful synthetic opioid. The trial is the culmination of years of research. It aims to show that a vaccine, unlike existing emergency remedies, could prevent a fentanyl overdose from ever happening. (Langreth, 3/31)

MENTAL HEALTH

AP: Military Suicides Fell In 2024, Pentagon Says
Fewer American service members died by suicide in 2024, with the number of deaths falling by 11% to 471 from a year earlier, according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday. The rate of suicides per 100,000 service members also dropped that year compared to 2023, the report said. The decrease emerged under Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration and followed a rise in the number of military suicides in 2023. (Finley, 4/1)

The Colorado Sun: Poison And Drug Center Receives Funding To Study Psychedelic Use
Since Colorado decriminalized psilocybin, use of the drug appears to have increased in the state, though that’s uncertain because the jump — 1.8 percentage points to 4.3% of the adult population — is not statistically significant. (Ingold, 3/31)

The Texas Tribune: Texas To Conduct Its Own Ibogaine Clinical Trials
Texas is launching its own research program into a psychedelic called ibogaine after state officials couldn’t find a company to help develop it into a drug for FDA approval. (Simpson, 3/31)

Stat: Can A Psychedelic 'Coach' Make Ketamine Therapy More Effective? 
Ketamine treatment clinics have proliferated following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug as a remedy for acute depression in 2019, leading to a Wild West of infusion clinics that have expanded treatment access for many Americans without much regulation. (Broaderick, 4/1)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

NBC News: Title X Funding For Reproductive Health Care Could Lapse Due To Trump Admin Delays
For health clinics that rely on federal funding through Title X, April 1 is one of the most important days of the year: It’s when the grant program’s annual funds are typically renewed. Clinics rely on the money to provide reproductive health services — such as birth control, cancer screenings, wellness exams and HIV testing — to more than 2.8 million people, many of whom are low-income, uninsured or underinsured. (Bendix, 3/31)

Stat: Why An Ovary Disorder May Get A New Name: Men Can Have It, Too
Few things will give a man as much of an insight into the female body as growing up with sisters. Painful, irregular periods, body hair, skin trouble: Al Barrus, a 43-year-old veteran and communications specialist from New Mexico, heard all about it growing up, the only male of three siblings. He’s also known for a while that one of his sisters had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, an endocrinological disorder and leading cause of infertility associated with a range of issues including high androgen levels, insulin resistance, and enlarged ovaries. His other sister, too, had some PCOS symptoms. Recently, he’s begun to wonder: Could he have it, too? (Merelli, 4/1)

HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL

Politico: A Slowdown In U.S. Visa Processing Is Wreaking Havoc On Foreign Doctors’ Lives 
The Trump administration is slow-walking visa renewals for foreign doctors in the United States from the 39 countries from which the president has banned visitors. President Donald Trump says people from the countries are national security threats, but the visa pause is forcing physicians who’ve lived in the U.S. for years to stop working and exacerbating staffing shortages that are a longstanding headache for hospital administrators, more than a dozen foreign doctors told POLITICO. (Levien, 4/1)

CIDRAP: Nearly Half Of US Family Physicians Report Burnout
Burnout among US family physicians is around 44% and is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of switching jobs or leaving practice altogether. That trend could lead to lower care satisfaction and increased spending for patients, as well as have substantial financial consequences for health care organizations, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Bergeson, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Some Popular Graduate Degrees Don’t Pay Off Financially, Study Finds 
The report, based on research from the Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy, found that graduate degrees in medicine, law and pharmacy generally have the highest return on investment. By contrast, degrees in popular fields such as social work, psychology, and curriculum and instruction may actually have a zero to negative return after factoring in the full cost. (Wallack, 3/31)

MedPage Today: Doc Gave Patients Recalled CPAPs 'Fixed' By His Own Children
Eric Haeger, MD, of Washington state, was sentenced to a year in prison for his role in a scheme involving recalled Philips breathing devices, federal prosecutors announced. Haeger will also have to pay a $60,000 fine and nearly $350,000 in restitution, and he'll have a year of supervised release once he's released from prison, according to the press release. (Fiore, 3/31)

Modern Healthcare: CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Hires Kurt Small As CEO
Kurt Small has been named as president and CEO of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, effective May 4. Small is the president of Medicaid for Elevance Health. He will succeed Ja’Ron Bridges, who has been serving as interim president and CEO since Brian Pieninck left the company in September to become president and CEO of GuideWell and its insurer subsidiary Florida Blue, a CareFirst spokesperson said Tuesday. (DeSilva, 3/31)

Modern Healthcare: Elevance Health Reshuffles Leadership At Carelon, Insurance Units
Elevance Health announced a leadership shake-up across its health insurance and healthcare services divisions on Tuesday. In a news release, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensee said the changes are “designed to better align capabilities, accelerate decision-making and improve enterprise efficiency.” The company also said it supports the expansion of Carelon, the healthcare services arm. (Tepper, 3/31)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

NBC News: Medicaid Cuts Threaten Hundreds Of Hospitals, New Report Finds
More than 400 hospitals across the United States are at high risk of closing or cutting services because of the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” according to an analysis from the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen. The fallout could make it harder for millions of people to get care and put thousands of health care workers’ jobs at risk as hospitals lose a key source of federal funding. Medicaid covers about a fifth of all hospital spending. (Lovelace Jr., 3/31)

St. Louis Public Radio: New Hospital At Fort Leonard Wood Is Ready To Open 
The new hospital at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri’s Ozarks will begin hosting patients next week. The facility includes more than 225,000 square feet of hospital and clinic space, including three operating rooms, one dedicated C-section room and Level III trauma emergency facilities that can handle events including mass casualty response and decontamination. (Ahl, 3/31)

The Baltimore Sun: Giving Patients A Hand With Complex Hand Injuries Or Deformities
Scott Price was working with a wood splitter when it kicked out a fragment of a log, pinning his left hand against a metal plate and severing his thumb and forefinger. After his local hospital in Poconos, Pennsylvania, failed to reattach the digits, Price came to MedStar Health’s Curtis National Hand Center at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, which specializes in complex hand injuries and birth defects of the hands. (Hille, 3/31)

Fierce Healthcare: UnitedHealthcare Launches New Generative AI Companion
UnitedHealthcare announced Thursday it has launched a generative artificial intelligence companion to improve care coordination for its members. The AI-companion, dubbed Avery, allows users to seek information regarding coverage, personal benefits, appointment scheduling, claim approval status, benefits explanations and more. (Gleeson, 3/31)

PHARMA AND TECH

Bloomberg: Novo Nordisk Launches Wegovy Subscription Plan To Compete With Lilly
Novo Nordisk A/S is launching a subscription program with lower monthly prices on its Wegovy pill and shot, the latest in a series of moves the Danish drugmaker has taken to win back share from rival Eli Lilly & Co. Starting on Tuesday, patients who pay in cash can sign up for a three-, six- or 12-month subscription through select telehealth partners, including Ro, Weight Watchers and LifeMD Inc. Patients who sign up for a 12-month subscription will pay just $249 a month for the Wegovy pen, undercutting Lilly’s lowest monthly price by about $50. (Muller, 3/31)

FiercePharma: Novo Nordisk Cuts 400 Roles At Troubled Bloomington Site
Amid a major corporate overhaul, Novo Nordisk is pruning the ranks at its production facility in Bloomington, Indiana, which chips in on the blockbuster GLP-1 medications Ozempic and Wegovy. All told, Novo plans to eliminate some 400 positions at the Bloomington site "at the beginning of May," a company spokesperson told Fierce Tuesday. Once the downsizing is complete, roughly 1,400 workers will remain at the site, according to the spokesperson. (Kansteiner, 3/31)

The New York Times: Eli Lilly Will Buy A Narcolepsy Drug Developer For $6.3 Billion
Eli Lilly reached a deal on Tuesday to buy Centessa Pharmaceuticals, a company developing treatments for the sleep disorder narcolepsy and other neurological conditions. Lilly, which is flush with cash from sales of its weight-loss drug and has been on a deal-making spree, agreed to initially pay $6.3 billion in cash for the company. Lilly could end up paying an additional $1.5 billion if U.S. regulators were to eventually approve a pair of drugs that Centessa is developing. (Robbins, 3/31)

Stat: Baby KJ Researchers Face FDA Hurdle On Scaling Custom Treatments 
The scientists behind treating Baby KJ say they’ve hit a stumbling block in their efforts to create more custom gene editing treatments for children with rare diseases. Food and Drug Administration reviewers, they say, are imposing high manufacturing and quality control standards that could make it too expensive and complicated for them — or any academics — to bring such bespoke therapies to approval. (Mast, 3/31)

CIDRAP: Antidepressant Relieves Fatigue In People With Long COVID, Study Finds
An antidepressant called fluvoxamine reduces fatigue in people with long COVID, at least in the short term, according to a new study that tested the drug against a placebo. In a randomized clinical trial of 399 people, all participants had significant fatigue, measured by a score of at least four points on a  seven-point scale called the Fatigue Severity Scale, a validated measure in which people rate their level of tiredness or exhaustion. Seven points on the scale indicates the worst fatigue. (Szabo, 3/31)

CIDRAP: Rapid Antibiotic Susceptibility Test For UTIs Shows Promise
A new test developed by scientists in the United Kingdom could provide urinary tract infection (UTI) patients with quicker antibiotic treatment, according to a study today in JAC-Antimicrobial Resistance. (Dall, 3/31)

MedPage Today: KT Tape May Not Be All That Helpful For Joint, Muscle Pain
Kinesio taping -- also known as KT tape -- may dampen joint and muscle pain in the short term, but the evidence is highly uncertain, an overview of systematic reviews showed. (Henderson, 3/31)

STATE WATCH

AP: Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey Hospitalized After Minor Procedure
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey was hospitalized Tuesday after undergoing what her office described as a minor procedure to remove fluid that was pressing on her lung. The 81-year-old Republican governor will be monitored at Baptist Medical Center South in Montgomery “in the coming days” out of an abundance of caution, Ivey spokeswoman Gina Maiola said in a statement. (3/31)

AP: Arkansas Psychiatrist Indicted Over Alleged Drugging And Abduction Of Patients
The former chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board was indicted on charges that he drugged and abducted patients at a psychiatric facility in order to get more money from health care reimbursements, according to an indictment released on Monday. An Arkansas grand jury indicted Dr. Brian Hyatt in early March on charges that he gave numerous patients strong, mind-altering sedatives in order to keep them at the facility without a medical justification. He is charged with two federal counts of kidnapping and distribution of the controlled substances that he allegedly used to subdue patients. (3/31)

AP: 4 Charged In Corruption Probe Linked To NYC Homeless Shelter Operator
Four people connected to a company hired by New York City to operate homeless shelters for migrants were arrested Tuesday as part of a federal public corruption investigation that is also examining a City Council member and a top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. The charges Tuesday focused on two leaders of the nonprofit, BHRAGS Home Care Corp., who are accused of stealing more than $1.3 million from the taxpayer-backed organization, and two subcontractors who the indictment says paid bribes and kickbacks to the men in exchange for contracts worth millions. (Offenhartz and Sisak, 3/31)

Bloomberg: In LA And SF, Urban Alchemy Offers An Unorthodox Fix For Homelessness
In May 2025, pressure at Pete’s Place hit a boiling point. For more than 15 years, the homeless shelter in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had been operated by a nonprofit group called Interfaith Community Services. But calls for police and medical service to the area around the 75-bed shelter had skyrocketed. “We saw pretty astounding levels of overdoses and drug arrests, the kind of indicators that really compelled us as a city to take action,” said Henri Hammond-Paul, then Santa Fe’s director of community health and safety. (Sisson, 3/31)

North Carolina Health News: Durham Family Turns Leukemia Journey Into Mission To House Pediatric Patients’ Families
On the days she didn’t need to be hospitalized while being treated for leukemia, 8-year-old Harper Harrell was able to go home and sleep in her own bed. Duke Children’s Hospital is just 1.9 miles from her family’s home in Durham. (Fernandez, 4/1)

RECALLS

The New York Times: 10 Million Grill Brushes Recalled After Some People Ingested Loose Bristles 
More than 10 million grill brushes have been recalled after it was determined that their wire bristles can detach and inadvertently be ingested, a federal regulatory agency said on Thursday. The grill brushes, made by Nexgrill, were sold at Home Depot and online between 2015 and 2026, the company said on its website. Nexgrill said it was voluntarily recalling 10.2 million brushes in total. Customers should immediately stop using the brushes, Nexgrill said, as the potential ingestion of bristles could lead to “serious internal injuries that could require surgery.” (Fahy, 3/28)