Category: Health Industry

This News Might Ruin Your Appetite — And Summer

Fresh studies expose a gap in the FDA’s assessments of foods: Widely used additives could damage the mix of bacteria in your gut, causing health problems.

Rural Patients Face Tough Choices When Their Hospitals Stop Delivering Babies

More than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies since 2021, including a South Dakota hospital that serves small towns, farming communities, and a Native American reservation. Patients there now travel at least an hour to give birth.

Pharmacists Stockpile Most Common Drugs on Chance of Targeted Trump Tariffs

While Big Pharma seems ready to weather the tariff storm, independent pharmacists and makers of generic drugs — which account for 90% of U.S. prescriptions — see trouble ahead for patients.

Trump’s Fast-Tracked Deal for a Copper Mine Heightens Existential Fight for Apache

Apache tribal members are already feeling psychological and spiritual harm as the Trump administration moves to fast-track a deal to turn their sacred land of Oak Flat, Arizona, into a copper mine.

An Arm and a Leg: A Health Policy Veteran Puts 2025 in Perspective

Two stories from Washington, D.C., give listeners a sense of what changes the Trump administration has been making to health policy, with KFF Health News’ Julie Ronver and Arthur Allen.

Seeking Spending Cuts, GOP Lawmakers Target a Tax Hospitals Love To Pay

Republicans, on the hunt for spending cuts, are eyeing a special kind of Medicaid tax that nearly every state uses to boost funding for hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers.

At Social Security, These Are the Days of the Living Dead

In recent weeks, Social Security has been plagued by problems related to technology, system errors, and even the marking of living people as dead.

Trump Team’s $500 Million Bet on Old Vaccine Technology Puzzles Scientists

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS said an enormous, noncompetitive flu vaccine development grant to two favored NIH leaders would ensure “transparency, effectiveness, and comprehensive preparedness.” But their vaccine is in early stages, relies on old technology, and is just one of scores of similar efforts.

In Reversal, FDA Rehires Staff Tasked With Releasing Public Records

At least some workers who process public records in response to Freedom of Information Act requests have been reinstated, agency employees say.

Government Watchdog Expects Medicaid Work Requirement Analysis by Fall

This fall, the U.S. Government Accountability Office expects to release a report on how much it costs to run Georgia Pathways to Coverage — the country’s only active Medicaid work requirement program — as other states and Congress consider similar programs.