The Week In Brief: Dec. 12, 2025
How Delays and Bankruptcy Let a Nursing Home Chain Avoid Paying Settlements for Injuries and Deaths
Jordan Rau
Genesis HealthCare’s bankruptcy case in Dallas will allow the nursing home chain to avoid paying millions of dollars it promised for residents who were injured or died while in its care. Families say bankruptcy nullifies one of the main ways to hold nursing home owners accountable for poor care.
Wheelchair? Hearing Aids? Yes. ‘Disabled’? No Way.
Paula Span
Many older Americans shun an identity that could bring helpful accommodations, improve care, and provide community.
Sticker Shock: Obamacare Customers Confront Premium Spikes as Congress Dithers
Julie Appleby
With subsidies that give consumers extra help paying their health insurance premiums set to expire, lawmakers are again debating the Affordable Care Act. The difference this time: It’s happening in the middle of ACA open enrollment.
Plan-Switching, Sign-Up Impersonations: Obamacare Enrollment Fraud Persists
Julie Appleby
Investigators from the Government Accountability Office were able to register nearly 20 fake ACA enrollments in a probe of healthcare.gov. The federal government paid subsidies to insurers for some of the fake customers.
Crunch Time for ACA Tax Credits
Dec. 15 is the deadline to sign up for Affordable Care Act plans that begin Jan. 1, and Congress remains at odds over letting expanded tax credits for the plans’ premiums expire and increasing the cost of insurance for millions of Americans. Meanwhile, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to remake vaccine policy to reflect ideology rather than science. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Maya Goldman of Axios, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Georgetown professor Linda Blumberg about the GOP’s health plans.
Trump’s Idea for Health Accounts Has Been Tried. Millions of Patients Have Ended Up in Debt.
Noam N. Levey
Republican calls to give Americans cash instead of health insurance subsidies double down on a decades-old strategy of moving people into high-deductible plans with health savings accounts.
Watch: What Do Republicans Really Want on Health Care?
Julie Rovner
On “What the Health? From KFF Health News,” distributed by WAMU, chief Washington correspondent and podcast host Julie Rovner sat down with Avik Roy, a GOP health policy adviser, to talk about how health care has evolved as a Republican Party issue.
Out-of-Pocket Pain From High-Deductible Plans Means Skimping on Care
Charlotte Huff
High-deductible health insurance plans are increasingly common, and many more enrollees will likely need to choose such plans for the coming year. For those with chronic conditions like diabetes, the gamble can mean compromised care and long-term consequences.
Health Care Consolidation and Rising Costs Happen, but Obamacare Is Not the Key Culprit
Julie Appleby
The debate over expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits has given Republicans room to resurface old criticisms — such as blaming the ACA for mergers and consolidation within the health care industry.
A North Carolina Hospital Was Slated To Open in 2025. Mired in Bureaucracy, It’s Still a Dirt Field.
Andrew Jones
Regulations meant to prevent unfettered health care expansion are withholding needed hospital beds in a rural part of North Carolina. Here, as in communities around the country, some officials and health care providers are contesting such “certificate of need” laws.
This HIV Expert Refused To Censor Data, Then Quit the CDC
Amy Maxmen
HIV physician John Weiser talks about why complying with President Donald Trump’s orders to erase transgender people is bad for science and society. And he notes that acquiescing didn’t spare the CDC from further harm.
Vaccine Panel’s Hepatitis B Vote Signals Further Turbulence for Immunization Policy, Public Trust
Céline Gounder
Clinicians and epidemiologists warn the decision to no longer recommend the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine could unravel decades of progress and expose newborns to a deadly, preventable disease.
Trump Rules Force Cancer Registries To ‘Erase’ Trans Patients From Public Health Data
Rachana Pradhan
In 2026, U.S. cancer registries that receive federal funding will be required by the Trump administration to classify patients’ sex as only male, female, or not stated/unknown.
Journalists Dig Into Maine HIV Outbreak and Ever-Closer End to Enhanced ACA Subsidies
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.