Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Meta Trial Over Child Safety Begins In Federal Court In California
AP: Meta Platforms Faces Pivotal Trial As Opening Arguments Begin In California
Opening arguments are set to kick off Tuesday in a pivotal trial for Meta Platforms in a California federal court. Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey are seeking extensive financial damages plus changes to how the company operates Facebook and Instagram. Twenty-nine states sued the tech giant in 2023 over child safety and privacy — the other 25 will go to trial later. The company also faces lawsuits in state courts. (Ortutay, 8/18)
The New York Times: OpenAI Introduces ‘ChatGPT For Teens’ As Safety Concerns Grow
OpenAI announced on Tuesday “ChatGPT for Teens,” a new mode in which the chatbot automatically limits some conversations to better protect young users, as scrutiny grows over the harmful effects of artificial intelligence. Many features of the new mode deal with safety, the company said in a blog post. The chatbot will limit high-risk conversations that involve self-harm, violence, eating disorders, and explicit sexual and graphic content. (Kang, 8/18)
On the high cost of healthcare —
The CT Mirror: Will CT’s New Healthcare Affordability Measures Lower Costs?
For years, Connecticut lawmakers and elected officials have been laboring to understand — and curtail — rapidly rising healthcare costs. They first gathered data to measure annual growth in healthcare spending and established benchmark growth rates. The intent was for insurers and healthcare providers to hew to the benchmark rate or lower, but there was no way to enforce it. (Golvala, 8/18)
CalMatters: Californians Face Eviction As Insurer Cancels Assisted Living Benefit
Four weeks ago, Matt Johnstone received a call from the board-and-care facility in North Hollywood where his 89-year-old father lives. Health Net, the insurance company that pays for his care, was eliminating its assisted living benefit, meaning he would have to move out soon. Johnstone panicked. His father has dementia and needs around-the-clock care. Neither Johnstone nor his brother can afford the roughly $6,000 per month the facility costs, and with health problems of their own, they can’t safely meet his needs at home either. Without insurance coverage, their father could end up on the streets, he said. (Hwang, 8/17)
Stat: Public Sector Workers Face Extra Burden With Rising Health Care Costs
Residents of Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County — home of the state capital, Harrisburg, and the chocolaty oasis of Hersheypark — were shocked with unwelcome news in December 2024. For the first time in two decades, the county’s leaders had not only voted to raise their property taxes, but did so by a whopping 22%. What they may not have realized: That higher tax bill was needed to help offset the soaring health care costs of the county’s employees. (Herman, 8/18)
More news from around the nation —
NOTUS: Planned Parenthood Plans Its Biggest Ad Buy Of 2026 Against Susan Collins
Planned Parenthood’s political action committee says it will spend $600,000 on ads against Sen. Susan Collins — the organization’s biggest ad investment this cycle. Planned Parenthood Votes plans to use the ad campaign to criticize the Maine Republican, who is up for reelection, for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who later supported the high court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. One of the ads, which has already been available on YouTube, features a Maine woman who said she regrets her vote for Collins. (Herrington, 8/17)
Verite News: How La. Surgeon General Evelyn Griffin Wants To Change Public Health
Dr. Evelyn Griffin had led a life out of the spotlight until she testified at the Louisiana statehouse five years ago and experienced what she called her “great awakening.” The state health department wanted to add Covid vaccines to the school immunization schedule, a move no state has ever implemented. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then known as a leading vaccine skeptic, had already claimed the Covid shot was “the deadliest vaccine ever made” during a poster board presentation at the legislative hearing. (Westwood, 8/17)
KFF Health News: Drive For Nuclear Power Boosts Uranium Industry — And Tribal Health Concerns In Southwest
On a hot April day, Malcolm Lehi maneuvered his Jeep Wrangler over a rough dirt road past junipers and sagebrush in search of Entrance Spring on land long connected to his tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute. The cool, mossy spring lies just across the highway from White Mesa Mill, the nation’s only remaining conventional uranium mill, which produces yellowcake for nuclear power fuel. (Bailey, 8/18)
