TheVoiceOfJoyce Friday’s KFF Briefing has health news around our Country. Central Valley California will get a Medical School to help ease Dr shortages. The big Beautiful Bill is hurting kids health before the midterms, all the more reason to vote for representation. Plus the COVID Vaccine has been approved for the 2026-2027 season. Folks who have the hantavirus are getting an experimental anti viral. They’re being treated in the Netherlands. There’s more news, read on.

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Friday, May 29, 2026
Visit KFF Health News for the latest headlines

Morning Briefing 

CORRECTION

In a story in the May 28 Morning Briefing about a functional cure for chronic hepatitis B, The New York Times misidentified the company that is applying to the FDA for approval to market the drug. It is GlaxoSmithKline. The story and our headline have been updated with the correct information.

In This Edition:

From KFF Health News:

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES1. A Trump Stronghold Grapples With Health Risks of ICE Detention Sites Several rural communities were thrust into a charged national debate over the Trump administration’s mass deportation strategy when federal officials sought to place new detention centers in them. In Social Circle, Georgia, locals fear the effort will overburden its modest healthcare infrastructure. (Renuka Rayasam, 5/29)

2. After Her Bout of Amnesia, a $59,000 Billing Dispute Wouldn’t Go Away Last spring, a woman started exhibiting unusual memory problems after a hike in Arizona. It turns out she was experiencing a disorder called transient global amnesia. She has fully recovered, but a dispute over nearly $60,000 in hospital charges has been a source of stress for over a year. (Lauren Sausser, 5/29)

3. ‘What the Health? From KFF Health News’: More Kids Without Coverage When Republicans passed their big budget bill in 2025, they thought the effects of cuts to health programs wouldn’t show up until after the 2026 midterms. They were wrong. Meanwhile, the party is trumpeting its efforts to lower drug prices. Maya Goldman of Axios, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFFHealth News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner discusses Ebola with KFFHealth News’ Céline Gounder. (5/28)

Here’s today’s health policy haiku:

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

Closing the border
doesn’t work for viruses.
Here we go again.

– Barbara Pease

If you have a health policy haiku to share, please Contact Usand let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story.

Opinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions of KFF Health News or KFF.

Summaries Of The News:

HEALTHCARE COSTS4. Uninsured Rate Remained Hovering Around 8% In 2025, CDC Says 

Although the rate has held steady for the past few years, Modern Healthcare reports the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects 10 million people will lose coverage over the next decade due to changes in health programs instituted by the Trump administration.

Modern Healthcare: CDC Says Uninsured Rate Held Steady At 8.3% In 2025 The share of Americans lacking health insurance has held steady for the past few years — but the percentage is expected to rise. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Thursday shows 8.3% of Americans, or 28 million people, lacked health insurance in 2025. In comparison, 8.2% of residents lacked coverage in 2024. (Tepper, 5/28)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: More Kids Without Coverage The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by congressional Republicans in 2025, was supposed to backload cuts to health programs so they wouldn’t take effect until after the 2026 midterm elections. That’s not how things are working out, with numerous analyses showing insurance coverage is already starting to drop. Meanwhile, the Trump administration claims that the coverage reductions prove its anti-fraud efforts are working. But those efforts are likely to affect far more people than just those who commit fraud against federal health programs. (Rovner, 5/28)

More on the high cost of healthcare —

Modern Healthcare: Feds Finalize No Surprises Act Rule Overhauling Dispute Process After more than two years of delay, the federal government issued a regulation Thursday implementing major updates to the No Surprises Act. The final rule from the Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury departments and the Office of Personnel Management overhauls the law’s Independent Dispute Resolution process, which health insurance companies and out-of-network providers use to reconcile claims covered under the No Surprises Act, which is intended to protect patients against surprise bills. (Early, 5/28)

ProPublica: More Than $100M Billed For Questionable Vascular Procedures, IG Report Finds Dozens of doctors are routinely performing risky vascular procedures in medical offices, generating tens of millions of dollars in Medicare payments for potentially unnecessary procedures, according to a federal report released earlier this month. The review, completed by the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, flagged nearly 140 doctors across the country as having “concerning” billing patterns. (Waldman, 5/29)

KFF Health News: After Her Bout Of Amnesia, A $59,000 Billing Dispute Wouldn’t Go Away On April 10, 2025, several hours after finishing a hike in Sedona, Arizona, Jan Anderson started repeating herself. “Did we hike this morning?” she asked. “Yes, we hiked,” said her husband, Steve Francks. “And you did really well.” But 15 seconds later, she asked the same question: “Did we hike today?” Anderson, 65, a retired finance executive, doesn’t remember any of it. She can recall what happened that afternoon only because her husband started recording her on his cellphone. “I was just on this nonstop loop,” she said. Almost immediately, Francks knew something was wrong. “Jan was out of it,” he said. (Sausser, 5/29)

In other healthcare industry developments —

Fierce Healthcare: HCA Acquiring Healthcare Professional College To Boost Workforce For-profit hospital chain HCA Healthcare announced a deal to acquire The College of Health Care Professions, an in-person and online educator that prepares more than 8,000 students per year for non-physician healthcare positions. Terms for the deal announced Wednesday afternoon were not disclosed. A letter to students from the school’s chancellor and CEO, Eric Bing, said the acquisition would close “in the coming months, subject to customary regulatory approvals.” (Muoio, 5/28)

Modern Healthcare: Teladoc Debuts Clinical Offerings On Walmart’s Better Care Services Teladoc Health launched several services on Walmart’s virtual health hub. The company said in a Thursday news release it will offer virtual urgent care, dermatology and nutrition services through Walmart’s platform for $89 per visit. Walmart created its Better Care Services hub in January to connect users to third-party digital health providers such as Teladoc. (DeSilva, 5/28)

Modern Healthcare: Clover Health Wins Medicare Advantage Star Ratings Lawsuit Clover Health is in line for a boost to its Medicare Advantage star ratings under a court ruling that could embolden other health insurance companies. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia ruled Wednesday that 20 measures the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services uses to assess quality are improper. The court ordered CMS to recalculate Clover Health’s 2026 scores. (Tepper, 5/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: California University To Open Medical School In Central Valley The University of the Pacific plans to open a medical school at its main campus in Stockton, one of the only institutions to issue a doctor of medicine (M.D.) degree in California’s Central Valley. The school is slated to open in the fall of 2030, according to Thursday’s announcement. University officials hope it will help address the growing shortage of physicians in the Central Valley. UOP is the second major university in California to announce plans to open a medical school in recent weeks, after Santa Clara University with Sutter Health. (Ho, 5/28)

Iowa Public Radio: Broadlawns Hospital Brings Iowa’s First Mobile Memory And Wellness Unit To Polk County  Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines launched a new mobile memory unit that will offer mobile care services for dementia. The Mobile Memory and Wellness Clinic will serve as an extension of Broadlawns’ Memory Center and will travel to different neighborhoods and community centers in Polk County. (Curran, 5/28)

The Baltimore Sun: Construction Starts On Hickory Emergency Services Hub Harford County began construction this week on a new Emergency Services Special Operations facility in Hickory, meant to centralize all emergency response teams. (Foster, 5/27)

VACCINES5. FDA Panel Recommends Updating Covid Vaccine To Target XFG Strain 

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee also discussed the “cicada” variant but in the end decided to focus on the current dominant strain.

MedPage Today: FDA Panel Backs New COVID Vaccines Aimed At Dominant Strain The FDA’s vaccine advisors voted 8 to 0, with one abstention, in favor of a monovalent XFG vaccine for COVID-19 shots for the 2026-2027 season. The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) also discussed the need to target the long-simmering BA.3.2 variant, also known as “cicada,” though most expressed confidence that targeting XFG was the right way to go. (Fiore, 5/28)

In other news about vaccines —

The New York Times: Suit Says Black Infants Were Subjected To Experimental Vaccine Without Consent  The families of two Black infants who were unknowingly enrolled as test subjects in a mid-1960s vaccine trial for a respiratory virus and died shortly afterward have sued the United States government. Ross Otto Hambrick and Victor Marcellus King were just a few months old when they were administered a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., at a children’s clinic in Washington, D.C., between 1965 and 1966 without their families’ knowledge or consent, according to a lawsuit filed on May 22. Both died from the disease, coupled with bacterial pneumonia, about a year later, when Ross Otto was 14 months old and Victor 16 months. (Tumin, 5/28)

On weight loss —

NBC News: CVS Caremark Will Cover Lilly’s Weight Loss Drug Zepbound Again After Patient Backlash CVS Caremark will resume covering the weight loss drug Zepbound this year after it removed it from its list of covered medications last year, drugmaker Eli Lilly said Thursday. CVS Caremark is one of the country’s largest pharmacy benefit managers, deciding which medications millions of people in the U.S. can get through insurance and how much they pay out of pocket. (Lovelace Jr., 5/28)

The Washington Post: When Is A GLP-1 Drug Too Potent?  In interviews, doctors warned that using a drug to shrink your body that much will require close medical management — much more than the level of monitoring many people are now getting when taking drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound. (Rowland, 5/29)

More pharma and tech news —

HealthDay: Drug Effective In Slowing Progressive MS, Trial Shows An already-approved MS drug can significantly slow progression in people with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS), according to a new study. Patients treated with an IV infusion of ocrelizumab (Ocrevus) were less likely to have progression of their disability, researchers report in The Lancet. Specifically, they had better hand function and arm dexterity, and they were less likely to need a wheelchair, researchers found. (Thompson, 5/29)

CIDRAP: US Data Show ‘Alarming’ Increase In Multidrug-Resistance Gene US surveillance data show a dramatic rise in the incidence of a particularly worrisome form of multidrug-resistant bacteria in hospital patients, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases. (Dall, 5/28)

Modern Healthcare: Doctronic Releases Utah AI Prescribing Pilot Results Early results from a controversial pilot program testing the use of artificial intelligence to automate some prescriptions refills are in and being viewed as a promising test case for how AI may next be used in healthcare. In January, the state of Utah launched the pilot with artificial intelligence platform Doctronic. The state allowed the company to use its AI chatbot to manage prescription renewals for 192 drugs used to treat chronic conditions such as diabetes, depression and high blood pressure. The 12-month pilot is being widely watched within the industry, and there have been questions raised about its safety, legality and the broader use of AI in healthcare. (Famakinwa, 5/28)

MedShadow Foundation: Tejocote Root And The Tainted Supplement Problem The FDA Can’t Contain  An investigation into unregulated weight-loss products found widespread contamination with a toxic plant and a regulatory system struggling to keep them off the market. (Yasinski, 5/28)

CIDRAP: Multistate Salmonella Outbreak Tied To Moringa Supplements Tops 100 Cases, Leads To New Recall After reopening an investigation into a Salmonella outbreak tied to moringa leaf powder, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday confirmed 22 new cases in four newly affected states and implicated another product. The new cases and states increase the outbreak total to 119 infections in 36 states. The CDC also confirmed six new outbreak-related hospitalizations, bringing hospital cases to 32. No deaths have been reported, however. (Wappes, 5/28)

OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS6. US Cannot Open Ebola Quarantine Quarters In Kenya Just Yet, African Court Rules 

The Trump administration had reached an agreement with the Kenyan government that would have allowed Americans exposed to the deadly virus to isolate in the East African nation. A human rights groups contends the plan poses “grave health risks” to the public, Bloomberg reports. The Kenyan judge will hear arguments in the case June 2.

Bloomberg: US Plan For Kenya Ebola Quarantine Facility Obstructed By Court A Kenyan high court has temporarily blocked the government from approving a deal with the US to establish an Ebola quarantine facility in the East African nation. It also stopped Kenyan authorities “from admitting into, transferring to, receiving within, or facilitating the entry into Kenya of persons exposed to or infected with Ebola,” pursuant to the arrangement with the US, judge Patricia Nyaundi said. Parties will make oral arguments before the judge in the case on June 2, according to the order. (Herbling, 5/29)

CNN: US Ebola Facility In Kenya Sparks Backlash At Home And Abroad  The plan to launch this week a health facility in Kenya for Americans who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus has received widespread criticism – from both Kenyan doctors and US officials working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Madowo, Kent and Princewill, 5/28)

However —

NBC News: Americans Who Get Ebola Will Go To Europe For Treatment, Not U.S., Officials Say If more Americans contract Ebola and need advanced medical care, they will be sent to Europe rather than brought to the U.S., senior administration officials said Thursday. The announcement is the latest in a series of moves Trump administration officials have made to keep Americans exposed to or infected with Ebola out of the country amid the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Already, the U.S. has set up a facility in Kenya for any Americans exposed. It is set to open Friday with 50 quarantine beds. (Miller, 5/28)

More on the spread of Ebola —

Stat: Trump Ebola Travel Restrictions May Impede Doctors Who Want To Help When Craig Spencer contracted Ebola while working in Guinea during the West African outbreak in 2014, he was already back in the United States when he first developed symptoms. He credits the treatment he got at New York’s Bellevue Hospital for his survival. If Spencer, an emergency medicine physician and an associate professor in Brown University’s School of Public Health, were to contract Ebola in the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda — if he’d even had high-risk exposures to Ebola patients — he wouldn’t be allowed back into the U.S. for care or quarantine. (Branswell, 5/28)

The Hill: US, Mexico, Canada Coordinate Ebola Travel Measures Ahead Of FIFA World Cup The U.S., Mexico and Canada — the three countries hosting this year’s FIFA World Cup beginning in June — announced public health travel measures for people coming from parts of Africa that are at greatest risk from Ebola. “This coordinated approach aims to protect our citizens and the millions of visitors, fans, athletes, and tourists expected during the FIFA World Cup 2026, while maintaining travel and commerce across our borders,” the nations said in a joint statement Thursday. “The health and safety of every person in the region remains our highest priority as we welcome the world to North America.” (Swai, 5/28)

Bloomberg: Congo Defends Ebola Response As WHO Warns Tracing Is Failing Amid Insecurity Congo’s health minister pushed back against claims the country’s Ebola outbreak was spiraling out of control, even as World Health Organization officials warned insecurity and population displacement were preventing responders from tracing most suspected contacts. “I’ve heard in the press that the epidemic is ‘out of control,’” Roger Kamba, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Minister of Public Health, Hygiene, and Social Welfare, told reporters Thursday in Bunia, the outbreak’s epicenter. “We need to put into perspective the alarmist cries.” (Kavanagh and Gale, 5/29)

Bloomberg: WHO Advisers Recommend Limiting Experimental Ebola Drugs To Clinical Trials Drugs in development to treat and prevent infections caused by the Ebola virus that’s circulating in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda should be given only as part of clinical trials, advisers to the World Health Organization said. That means people who are sick now, or are at risk of becoming sick after being exposed to them, may not get access. It has been extraordinarily difficult to develop Ebola drugs, given that the outbreaks emerge sporadically, often in remote areas, and kill patients so quickly. (Fay Cortez and Smith, 5/28)

GLOBAL WATCH7. Europe Deploys Experimental Antiviral To Treat Hantavirus Patients 

Also, the U.S. government will allow American cruise ship passengers exposed to the hantavirus to return home as early as Monday, but they must remain under constant state supervision for the remaining three weeks of their six-week quarantine.

Forbes: Experimental Hantavirus Treatment Sent To EU Countries Where Patients Are Being Treated An experimental antiviral scientists hope will be effective in treating patients who were sickened by a hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship has been sent to ​France, Spain and the Netherlands—where a handful of patients are being treated—the European ‌Commission said Thursday. A total of 1,400 tablets of an experimental treatment called favipiravir was reportedly made available to EU member states by Fujifilm Pharmaceuticals in Japan, and individual countries will decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to use the medicine, which has not been approved by the European Medicines Agency. (Roeloffs and Pequeño IV, 5/28)

CNN: Hantavirus-Exposed Cruise Passengers May Soon Be Allowed To Return Home But Must Remain Under 24/7 Watch  The US government is prepared to allow American passengers who were exposed to a unique strain of hantavirus to return home as early as Monday, provided their states post a monitor outside their homes 24/7 for the remaining three weeks of their six-week quarantine. (Goodman, 5/28)

More news from around the globe —

AP: Canadian Man Expected To Plead Guilty To Selling Lethal Substances To People Who Killed Themselves A Canadian man accused of selling lethal substances online to people who took them to end their own lives is expected to plead guilty Friday to 14 counts of counseling or aiding suicide, his lawyer said. Kenneth Law is scheduled to appear in a Newmarket, Ontario, court to enter the plea and sentencing is expected to take place later. Canadian prosecutors will withdraw 14 murder charges in exchange for Law’s plea, his lawyer Matthew Gourlay said. (Gillies, 5/29)

Bloomberg: Virgin Galactic-Flown Mission To Study Menstruation In Space A reproductive health nonprofit is seeking to raise $1.2 million to book space travel with Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. and research menstruation in

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