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Medi-Cal, the nation’s largest Medicaid program, was in trouble even before the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Rapid expansion, spiraling costs, and billions in federal funding cuts will mean tough challenges for California’s next governor. On the campaign trail, the two men running for the job have offered few answers.
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As state governments grapple with how to determine who’s sick enough to be excused from new Medicaid work requirements, some families are already struggling with what illnesses guarantee health coverage because of a disability.
Federal programs that support brain injury research and services are in flux, with lapsed legislation and a diminished injury-tracking workforce. Still, in rural Pennsylvania, children with acquired brain injuries gathered for a summer camp that emphasized community, confidence, and fun.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
A new rule from the Justice Department upends a 25-year-old interpretation of federal disability law. Advocates fear it could result in cuts to services that help many disabled Americans live at home instead of in institutions.
Special Medicaid programs in many states allow disabled people to work while receiving benefits, and most limit how much participants can earn and the assets they can hold. Some Iowans are pushing lawmakers to remove those limits, which they say can dampen their career prospects.
The Department of Justice in June issued a legal opinion saying states aren’t required to provide services that help people with disabilities remain in their homes. The new position has added momentum to states’ existing legal challenges to the requirement and triggered worries among people who rely on these services.
Complex computer systems that decide whether people, including the disabled, get Medicaid benefits have a history of errors. Now changes to comply with Trump’s signature tax and domestic policy law are inundating those systems.
Final regulations on Medicaid work requirements say enrollees must regularly obtain documentation — possibly from medical professionals — to prove that they’re too sick to work. Doctors say the rules put them in a tough spot.
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new autism panel is championing a controversial communication method popular among parents of severely autistic people. Critics warn of abuse — and fake “telepathy.”
To collect and scrutinize millions of Americans’ health data, U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aims to work with state organizations that help health systems share medical records. In Nebraska, millions in federal dollars has flowed into one nonprofit cooperating with Kennedy’s project.
Health experts and advocates for low-income people say federal rules implementing President Donald Trump’s new Medicaid work requirements upend months of work by state governments to prepare the computer systems that determine who’s eligible for benefits.
Immigrant detainees have told courts across the nation that detention officials have failed to treat or stabilize their conditions, from pregnancy to prostate cancer, suggesting that systemic lapses in care extend well beyond record deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Some children are healthy enough to leave the hospital after a medical stay but have no place to go. Across the country, the practice of allowing children to remain hospitalized “beyond medical necessity” has become a costly problem, and states have struggled to address the issue.
The Trump administration’s unprecedented actions targeting Medicaid funding in Minnesota are part of what could become a playbook as officials turn pressure toward California, Florida, Maine, and New York.
Iowa patient advocates say that in the face of federal Medicaid cuts, the state is quietly reducing in-home services that help people avoid being institutionalized. National groups are bracing for similar cuts elsewhere.
Idaho is positioning to slash Medicaid funding as state lawmakers grapple with the effects of the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last year. On the table are in-home care services.
Republicans have said new rules requiring many Medicaid participants to work 80 hours a month will pinpoint unemployed young people who should have jobs. Policy researchers say the rules are more likely to disrupt coverage for middle-aged adults, harming their physical and financial health.
The Trump administration wants deep funding cuts for state-based legal services for disabled people, as rights advocates say the Justice Department pushed out many of its lawyers who worked on such issues.
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