ABC News: House Set To Vote On Ending Government Shutdown
The House will be in session on Wednesday for the first time in 54 days, with all eyes on a vote to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The House will hold first votes as early as 4 p.m. ET on Senate-passed legislation to reopen the government, according to a notice from House Republican Whip Tom Emmer. Wednesday marks the 43rd day of the shutdown, shattering the previous 35-day record. (Peller and Hutzler, 11/12)

The Guardian: Top House Democrats Vow To Oppose Shutdown Bill Over Healthcare Funding
As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the US government, top Democrats vowed on Tuesday to oppose the bill for not addressing their demand for more healthcare funding. Democrats have for weeks insisted that any measure to fund the government include an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans, which were created under Joe Biden and due to expire at the end of the year, sending premiums for enrollees higher. (Stein, 11/11)

NBC News: Republicans Demand Tougher Abortion Restrictions To Extend Obamacare Funds
Senate Republicans say they’re open to extending a pot of Affordable Care Act funds that will expire at the end of the year — but only if Democrats acquiesce to stricter abortion restrictions on insurance plans. ... Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said there will be a negotiation about an extension after the government reopens. He said one condition will be stricter rules pertaining to the Hyde amendment, which bars federal funding from being used for abortion. (Kapur, 11/11)

Becker's Hospital Review: Trump Floats Sending ACA Dollars Directly To Consumers
President Donald Trump proposed that federal healthcare funding be directed to individuals rather than through insurers in a Nov. 8 post on Truth Social. “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over. (Casolo and Emerson, 11/11)

Politico: Obamacare Could Collapse Under Trump’s New Plan, Policy Experts Say
Republicans say giving health care subsidies as cash to consumers would give Americans more control over their coverage. Critics say it could severely undermine the ACA marketplaces. (Hooper and King, 11/11)

More on Obamacare —

Axios: Democrats Hammer Republicans On More Than Just ACA Premium Hikes After Election
Democrats have already laid the groundwork to not only rebound from their failure to win Affordable Care Act concessions in the government shutdown but hammer Republicans on health care costs far beyond the ACA markets. (Owens and Sullivan, 11/12)

Politico: Republicans Need Trump For The Debate On Obamacare Credits 
President Donald Trump didn’t get involved in negotiations to end the government shutdown. But he plans to get his hands dirty as his party confronts expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, according to a White House official. With affordability top of mind for voters going into the midterms, too much is at stake for Trump to stay away again as the GOP grapples with whether to extend the ACA subsidies, allow premiums to spike or craft new health policy. (Gangitano and Stokols, 11/11)

The New York Times: As Shutdown Nears End, Trump Still Confronts Soaring Health Costs 
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is coming to an end, but the central issue that caused it — the staggering cost of health care — isn’t going away anytime soon. It will continue to bedevil President Trump, especially as the midterm elections draw closer. The burden is now on Mr. Trump and Republicans to bring down costs or risk peril in the those elections, after a splinter group of Democrats agreed to end the shutdown by dropping their party’s demand to extend certain health insurance subsidies. Despite repeated promises to offer an alternative to Obamacare, Mr. Trump has nothing much to show on the issue, beyond a vague plan to send money directly to policyholders. (Sanger-Katz and McCreesh, 11/11)

Fierce Healthcare: CHS Downplays Impact Of ACA Subsidies' Likely Expiration
As a record-breaking government shutdown likely nears its end, executives at for-profit hospital chain Community Health Systems are downplaying the detrimental impact expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies and other policy headwinds will have on their business. Speaking Tuesday morning at the 2025 UBS Global Healthcare Conference, President and Interim CEO Kevin Hammons made a point to note that ACA exchanges represent less than 5% of the company’s net revenue. (Muoio, 11/11)

Also —

KFF Health News: Readers Take Congress To Task And Offer Their Own Health Policy Fixes 
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (11/12)

The New York Times: Supreme Court Extends Order Allowing Limits On Food Stamp Payments
The Supreme Court extended on Tuesday a temporary ruling that allowed the Trump administration to withhold full food stamp benefits while Congress worked to advance a measure to end the government shutdown. The new order will expire just before midnight on Thursday, giving lawmakers and President Trump two more days to approve and sign a government funding bill. The House is expected to vote as early as Wednesday on a measure passed by the Senate. (VanSickle, 11/11)

The 19th: College Students Have Been Silently Suffering Without SNAP Benefits
Maia Jackson should have been cranking out a research paper for her communications class. Instead, she found herself queuing up at a food pantry to secure groceries for her household amid the nation’s longest government shutdown. (Nittle, 11/10)

North Carolina Health News: SNAP Snafu Affects Nearly 85,000 NC College Students 
UNC Greensboro junior Taniyah McCormick grabbed a couple of plastic bags to fill as she perused the shelves at the Spartan Open Pantry on Thursday. She used to stop by once a month, but with rising prices — and now a delay in her November federal food benefits — she said she’s coming by more often. (Fernandez, 11/11)

NPR: Shutdown Could Be Nearing End, But High Demand For Food Assistance Lingers 
The Capital Area Food Bank in Washington D.C., says it's allotted an extra 1 million meals for November, given the uncertainties about whether and when SNAP recipients will get their full benefits. (Archie, 11/12)

The Texas Tribune: Texans Have Started To Receive Partial SNAP Payments
Some Texans started receiving SNAP benefits on Monday after food assistance payments for November were delayed for more than a week as a result of the federal government shutdown. (Byman, 11/10)

NBC News: Hormone Replacement Therapy Will No Longer Carry A Warning Label, FDA Says
Hormone therapies for menopause will no longer carry a black box warning about serious risks such as breast cancer, heart attack and stroke, the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday. In the announcement and an accompanying editorial in the medical journal JAMA, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and other agency officials said the warnings are based on outdated science and have discouraged women from taking hormone therapy. (Bendix and Edwards, 11/10)

Mother Jones: The Many Problems With The FDA’s Big Menopause Announcement 
FDA commissioner Marty Makary listed “divorce” alongside well-documented symptoms like mood swings and hot flashes. For Adrian Sandra Dobs, a professor of Medicine and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, this claim was “pretty ridiculous.” (Butler and McShane, 11/10)

NPR: Is Hormone Therapy For Menopause Right For You? 6 Things To Know
The science around hormone therapy to treat menopause has changed a lot since the FDA issued warning labels 20 years ago. Now the labels are being removed, here are 6 things to consider. (Aubrey, 11/11)

On autism and pregnancy —

CIDRAP: Tylenol Use In Pregnancy Not Tied To Autism, ADHD, Review Shows
An umbrella review of nine systematic reviews published today in BMJ shows no link between maternal acetaminophen (Tylenol) use during pregnancy and autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children. The study, led by University of Liverpool researchers, involved a review of research published within the past 10 years, up to September 30, 2025, to evaluate the quality and validity of the evidence and the strength of any association between the use of acetaminophen (sold as paracetamol in many countries) during pregnancy and the risks of autism and ADHD. (Van Beusekom, 11/10)

On abortion —

Politico: Prominent Anti-Abortion Group Announces $80 Million Midterm Investment 
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and its affiliated super PAC plan to pour $80 million into electing anti-abortion candidates in 2026 in at least four battleground states, according to plans shared first with POLITICO. It’s an attempt by the anti-abortion movement to reassert its influence even after a string of post-Roe defeats at the ballot box. It also suggests a desire to elevate social conservatives’ cachet, which has waned within President Donald Trump’s new MAGA-infused, populist GOP. The promised investments comes as Republicans train their focus on the 2026 map, particularly after Democrats’ strong showings last week in New Jersey, California and New York City. (Messerly, 11/12)

The Washington Post: FDA Taps Oncology Expert Pazdur As Nation’s Top Drug Regulator
The Trump administration has named Richard Pazdur, a longtime oncology expert at the Food and Drug Administration, as the nation’s top drug regulator. Pazdur will lead the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which regulates over-the-counter medicines and most prescription drugs. He replaces George Tidmarsh, who federal officials say resigned over a week ago after being placed on leave over allegations that he misused his authority, in a tumultuous period for the FDA. (Diamond and Roubein, 11/11)

In other pharma and tech developments —

AP: Trump Pardons Pharmacist Who Pleaded Guilty To Health Care Fraud
President Donald Trump has pardoned Tennessee Republican Rep. Diana Harshbarger’s husband, who pleaded guilty more than a decade ago to health care fraud and other crimes and served time in federal prison. Robert Harshbarger Jr. was a licensed pharmacist in 2013 when he admitted substituting a cheaper drug imported from China that was not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the iron sucrose that the FDA had approved for kidney dialysis patients to use. He was sentenced to and served four years in prison. Trump signed the pardon document on Friday. (Superville, 11/11)

Stat: Telehealth Prescribing Of Ritalin, Addiction Medications OK'd Again 
The Trump administration appears poised to extend a temporary, Covid-era rule allowing health providers to prescribe certain controlled substances, like ADHD medications and treatments for opioid addiction, via telemedicine. (Facher, 11/11)

Politico: Wearables Could See HIPAA-Style Regulation
Despite voicing some uncertainty about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) wants to regulate one of the Health secretary’s favored components of his Make America Healthy Again agenda to combat chronic disease: wearable health devices. What’s new: Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wants to safeguard health data collected by wearables and health apps, which he says are “helpful tools, but present new privacy concerns that didn’t exist when it was just a patient and a doctor in an exam room.” (Brensel and Schumaker, 11/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Obesity Drugs Are About To Go Mass-Market
Companies don’t generally cut prices out of generosity. For most of Big Pharma, drug discounts have largely been about damage control. After months of tariff threats and talk of tougher pricing rules that weighed on their shares, several chief executives have made their way to the White House to announce drug-pricing deals in exchange for regulatory relief. (Wainer, 11/11)

The Washington Post: Inside The CIA’s Secret Mission To Sabotage Afghanistan’s Opium 
In a decade-long covert operation, the U.S. spy agency dropped modified poppy seeds in an attempt to degrade the potency of Afghanistan’s billion-dollar opium crop. (Strobel, 11/12)

Fierce Healthcare: Rural Hospitals' Labor And Delivery Closures Increased In 2025
More rural hospitals have closed or are planning to close their labor and delivery units in 2025 than in 2024, bringing the total number of closures since the end of 2020 to 116, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR). In a November report, the policy center outlined 27 completed or planned closures this year. That’s beyond the 21 of 2024 and the second-highest single-year total within the past five years behind 2023’s 34 closures. (Muoio, 11/11)

The Boston Globe: Bankruptcy Shields Troubled Genesis From Billions In Claims
Diana Coleman died of a stroke last year. But up until her last breath, the 73-year-old Townsend woman was battling Genesis HealthCare, a massive nursing home company, over the death of Coleman’s mother, Viola Whittemore, who died in 2020 after falling in one of Genesis’ Massachusetts nursing homes. Now, Coleman’s 43-year-old daughter, Jillian Allen, is carrying the family’s lawsuit forward. But it will be more challenging than Allen had ever imagined. (Lazar, 11/11)

The Boston Globe: Blue Cross, UMass Contract Showdown Puts Patients In The Middle
For Sarah Reilly, the letter she received from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts was alarming: she could lose access to her doctors by Jan. 1 because of a contract dispute between her health insurer and the UMass Memorial Health system. Reilly, 32, of Whitinsville, had come to rely on those UMass-affiliated physicians, for navigating everything from her life-threatening complications during pregnancy to her daughter’s heart condition. (Bartlett, 11/11)

The Baltimore Sun: Veteran's Combat Experience Elevates Pediatric ER Care
As part of a class called “Winter is Coming” at the children’s hospital, nurses put on oxygen masks for five minutes as respiratory therapists adjusted the fit and pressure. Some called the experience claustrophobic. The exercise encouraged staff to empathize with their young patients who may need to wear them to provide enough oxygen to lungs suffering from flu or COVID-19 this winter, said Tina Humbel, nurse manager of the Pediatric Critical Care Unit at the University of Maryland Golisano Children’s Hospital. (Hille, 11/11)

Also —

KFF Health News: Health Care Costs Jump To The Fore As Candidates Jockey To Be California Governor
California’s gubernatorial election is a year away, and the field of primary candidates is still taking shape. But one persistent issue has already emerged as a leading concern: the cost of health care. At a forum Nov. 7 in the Inland Empire, four Democratic candidates vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to push back against Republican cuts to health care programs and to improve people’s access to medical care, including mental health services. But while some floated taxes, candidates were light on details about how they would bring down health care costs. (Boyd-Barrett, 11/10)

KFF Health News: A Few Good Things From 2025 (Really)
Massive cuts to medical research and Medicaid. Waves of layoffs across the Department of Health and Human Services. Ongoing uncertainty around federal subsidies to buy health insurance on Affordable Care Act marketplaces. 2025 has been a rough year for federal health programs. But meanwhile, in the states, there were some wins for health care access. “An Arm and a Leg” host Dan Weissmann examines how lawmakers from across the political spectrum accomplished meaningful reforms. This episode takes listeners to Nebraska, which instituted aggressive new restrictions on prior authorization, and Virginia, where lawmakers banned wage garnishment and capped interest rates for certain medical debts. (11/12)

BBC: Canada Loses Measles Elimination Status, With US On Track To Follow
Canada has lost its measles elimination status, said the Pan American Health Organization (Paho) on Monday, after failing to curb an outbreak of the virus for 12 consecutive months. Because Canada is no longer deemed measles-free, the Americas region as a whole has lost its elimination status, although individually the other countries are still considered to have stamped out the disease. The US, however, risks losing its status as well if it does not stop an ongoing outbreak by January. (Yousif, 11/10)

Fox 8 Live: Passenger With Contagious Measles Passed Sunday Through Armstrong New Orleans Airport, LDH Says
The Louisiana Department of Health has confirmed one case of measles in an adult resident in Region 9, which includes Livingston, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa and Washington parishes. The patient was exposed during international travel. The individual was not hospitalized and will remain in isolation until no longer infectious. The vaccination status of the person is unknown. (11/10)

6 ABC Philadelphia: Health Officials Warn Of Possible Measles Exposure At Philadelphia International Airport 
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health says an individual with measles was traveling through the airport and that the exposure may have happened at Terminals A and B at PHL on Sunday, between 8:50 a.m. and 4 p.m. (11/11)

In other outbreaks and health threats —

The New York Times: Infant Formula Recall Expands As Botulism Outbreak Grows
ByHeart, a maker of organic baby formula, expanded a voluntary recall on Tuesday to include all of its products sold nationwide after federal health regulators found botulism infections in two additional infants, bringing the number of reported cases to 15. The expanded recall was announced days after the Food and Drug Administration told caregivers to stop using two batches of ByHeart’s powdered Whole Nutrition Infant Formula after health agencies found an increase in the number of botulism infections in infants who had consumed it. (Kirk, 11/11)

The Texas Tribune: Whooping Cough Cases In Texas Reach An 11-Year High
More than 3,500 cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, cases have been reported in Texas so far this year, already reaching a 11-year high even though two more highly infectious months are left in the year, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. (Simpson, 11/11)

CIDRAP: Mpox Infection Triggers Stronger, Longer-Term Protection Than Vaccination, Study Suggests 
Infection with the mpox virus (MPXV) confers strong immunity against future infection for up to two years, compared with vaccine-conferred protection, which wanes with time and requires boosting, researchers in Belgium and the Netherlands reported late last week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. (Van Beusekom, 11/11)

On the environment and your health —

The New York Times: Newsom In The Spotlight At The Climate Conference That Trump Decided To Skip 
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Tuesday cast himself as the “stable and reliable” American partner to the world, called a reported White House proposal to open offshore drilling in the waters off California “disgraceful” and urged his fellow Democrats to recast climate change as a “cost of living issue.” (Sengupta, 11/11)

KFF Health News: What The Air You Breathe May Be Doing To Your Brain 
For years, the two patients had come to the Penn Memory Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where doctors and researchers follow people with cognitive impairment as they age, as well as a group with normal cognition. Both patients, a man and a woman, had agreed to donate their brains after they died for further research. “An amazing gift,” said Edward Lee, the neuropathologist who directs the brain bank at the university’s Perelman School of Medicine. “They were both very dedicated to helping us understand Alzheimer’s disease.” (Span, 11/12)

Stat: Not Protecting Children From Preventable Disease Violates Their Rights
We are doctors who trained continents apart: one of us in Sweden (Peterson) and one in India (Pai). As we worked during the 1980s and ’90s in those disparate countries, neither of us ever saw a case of measles, diphtheria, or whooping cough. That was not a fluke. It was because the world once chose to fight these deadly childhood infections with miraculous tools called vaccines. (Stefan Swartling Peterson and Madhukar Pai, 11/12)

Stat: Richard Pazdur As CDER Head Is Good For Patients, Pharma 
Naming veteran regulator Richard Pazdur to head the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research is fantastic news for patients, drug companies, and anyone who cares about a rigorous, data-based FDA. (Matthew Herper, 11/11)

JAMA Network: Updated Labeling For Menopausal Hormone Therapy 
These labeling revisions signal a meaningful shift toward more nuanced, evidence-based communication of hormone therapy risks—one that prioritizes clinical relevance, distinguishes between different formulations and patient populations, and balances the narrative to reflect both safety and therapeutic value. It may also reduce the outsized fear that has prevented approximately 50 million women from the short- and long-term health benefits of this therapy. If implemented, these changes may guide appropriately tailored hormone therapy use and optimize individualized care. (FDA Commissioner Martin A. Makary, Christine P. Nguyen, and Tracy Beth Høeg, et al, 11/10)

The New York Times: Most Women Can Still Get Abortion Pills. That May Soon Change. 
Abortion pills have prevented Dobbs from unleashing all the ill effects that many people feared. But as threats to the pills’ availability grow, it would be a mistake if the surprising trends of the last three years led to complacency. (11/12)

The Boston Globe: We Already Have Doctor Shortages. Now Trump Wants To Make It Harder For Foreign Physicians To Fill The Gaps?
Hundreds of foreign medical professionals work in Massachusetts with an H-1B visa. Now those work permits will cost $100,000. (11/12)

The Washington Post: Trump’s $2K Tariff Checks Are Not In The Mail
It quickly emerged that Trump may not actually send out payments, certainly not anytime soon. (11/11)