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Morning Briefing 

In This Edition:

From KFF Health News:

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES1. In California Governor’s Race, Voters Face Stark Choice on Immigrant Healthcare California’s next governor will face tough decisions on a highly controversial piece of healthcare policy: what to do about health coverage for the more than 1.4 million low-income residents without legal status. Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton present starkly different choices as public opinion wavers. (Christine Mai-Duc, 7/6) 2. New Medicaid Work Rule Means More Opportunities To Lose Coverage A work requirement is coming to Medicaid. Sam Whitehead tells WAMU’s “Health Hub” how to keep your coverage — and who’s exempt from the new rule. (Sam Whitehead, 7/6) 3. Journalists Discuss Healthcare Costs’ Political Fallout, Concerns About Canceled ICE Facility KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (7/3)

Here’s today’s health policy haiku:

SCARY PROJECTION FOR 2034

Annual spending
on healthcare, says CMS,
will hit 9 trillion.

– Timothy Kelley

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. Planned Parenthood Regains Access To Medicaid Funds After Congress Let Ban Expire 

The Hill reports on how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was used to defund Planned Parenthood last year, but due to complicated Senate rules for the bill’s passing, the ban lasted only one year. As of July 4, Medicaid will once more be able to cover non-abortion care at Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation.

The Hill: Planned Parenthood Set To Regain Federal Funding As GOP Ban Expires Planned Parenthood will regain access to federal funding on Saturday, one year after Republicans were able to cut its clinics off from Medicaid. Last year, Republicans were successful in using the party-line One Big Beautiful Bill Act to achieve their long sought-after goal of defunding Planned Parenthood. But the complicated Senate rules involved in passing the bill meant the ban only lasted one year instead of 10. Come July 4, Medicaid will once again cover non-abortion care at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide. (Weixel, 7/2)

More about the costs of healthcare —

CNBC: Why ACA Enrollment Has Fallen By Millions Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act marketplace has fallen by millions of people this year — and the Trump administration and health policy experts are at odds over the cause. (Iacurci, 7/3)

KFF Health News: New Medicaid Work Rule Means More Opportunities To Lose Coverage Too sick to work? You may have to prove it. Next year, Medicaid recipients will have to start showing documentation such as a doctor’s note to avoid a new work requirement. KFFHealth News correspondent Sam Whitehead broke down the rule and exceptions on WAMU’s Health Hub on July 1. (Whitehead, 7/6)

KFF Health News: Journalists Discuss Healthcare Costs’ Political Fallout, Concerns About Canceled ICE Facility KFF Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed the high cost of healthcare and the political fallout on WAMU’s 1A on June 30. (7/3)

Initiatives on Congress’ radar —

Axios: Democratic Socialists Give New Life To Medicare For All Democratic socialist and progressives’ success in this year’s primaries is evidence of new enthusiasm for Medicare for All plans that many centrists have long dismissed as costly pipe dreams. The health affordability crisis and widespread frustration with the medical system are fueling a new appetite for big-government solutions to address drug prices, insurance premiums and long-term care costs. (Goldman, 7/6)

MedPage Today: It Has Wide Support And Costs Nothing. Can This Prior Auth Bill Pass Congress? “I still have hope,” said Peggy Tighe, legislative counsel for the Regulatory Relief Coalition, a group of physician specialty organizations advocating for regulatory burden reduction in Medicare, when she was asked about the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act, which was approved last week by the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee. The measure, which seeks more transparency and accountability from Medicare Advantage plans on their prior authorization decisions, must still be approved by the full Ways & Means and House Energy & Commerce committees before it hits the House floor for a vote. (Frieden, 7/3)

Modern Healthcare: Congress Eyes Boost To Direct Contracting For Employers Employer groups and companies that specialize in direct contracting arrangements are opening a new front in their battle against health insurance companies. Tentatively dubbed the Direct Care Coalition, the group is expected to launch in the fall. Likely members made their case at a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing Wednesday. Witnesses pitched direct contracting with providers and cutting out the middleman as a solution to rising health benefit costs, and asked lawmakers to enact policies that would make that easier. (McAuliff, 7/2)

ADMINISTRATION NEWS5. Experts Question RFK Jr.’s Push For More Preventive Care 

Two former chairs of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force warn that the recommendations could be shaped to benefit allies with financial ties to fitness and nutrition products, Politico reported.

Politico: RFK Jr. Wants You To Get More Preventive Care. Some Experts Say That’s A Bad Idea Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s about to remake another government panel with power over Americans’ access to health care. This time around, unlike his push to downsize the vaccine schedule, the health secretary is eager to expand the care Americans get. Kennedy’s denunciation of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for not requiring insurers to cover testing for Alzheimer’s disease has sparked lobbying by manufacturers of tests who’d benefit if Kennedy were to also encourage the task force to recommend coverage of more testing for colon cancer. (Paun, 7/5)

More news from the Trump administration —

AP: Trump Administration Plans New Rule To Cut Drug Prices The Trump administration is proposing a new rule on Thursday to keep hospitals from charging markups on discounted drugs for Medicare patients and says that could save consumers $1.1 billion next year, according to estimates obtained by The Associated Press. The rule would apply to hospitals that serve low-income patients under what is known as the 340B program, which lets hospitals buy outpatient prescription drugs at discounted prices. But in many cases, hospitals can bill insurers at rates that exceed those costs, allowing hospitals to keep the difference and resulting in higher costs to patients. (Boak, 7/2)

The Hill: Ex-CDC Official Debra Houry Describes Lack Of Trust In Robert F. Kennedy’s Leadership Dr. Debra Houry, the former chief medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), decried the direction of the agency under Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I think the secretary has caused a lot of irreparable harm, and when you look at many of the polls out there, the trust in public health, specifically CDC, has decreased dramatically, over 20 points in many polls,” Houry told host Margaret Brennan in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” (Rego, 7/5)

ABC News: RFK Jr. Has Promoted Using Beef Tallow Over Seed Oils But The Animal Fat May Not Be Healthier, Some Cardiologists Say Over the past several months, restaurants, fast food chains and major companies have said they are transitioning away from seed oils and adding beef tallow to their products instead. In February, Utz announced it was planning to launch a new line of kettle chips cooked in beef tallow under its Boulder Canyon brand, tapping “into growing consumer demand for snacks made without seed oils.” Other Utz products are cooked in a blend of seed oils. (Kekatos and Davis, 7/3)

The Hill: FDA Elevates Zapp’s, Dirty Chip Recall To Highest Risk Level Nearly two months after a voluntary recall of certain limited varieties of Zapp’s and Dirty brand potato chips, the recall has been upgraded to the Food and Drug Administration’s most serious risk level over possible salmonella contamination. Utz Quality Foods initially recalled the chips in May. The FDA has now classified it as a Class I recall. This means the recall concerns “a situation in which there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a violative product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death,” according to the FDA. (Delandro, 7/2)

The effects of administration policies —

AP: Cuba’s Healthcare System, Once A Source Of National Pride, Is In Decline Cuba’s once-vaunted system of free universal healthcare has deteriorated sharply. The crisis, say analysts, has been compounded by fuel shortages they attribute to tightened U.S. sanctions on the island’s energy sector, worsening an economy that had already been struggling for years. The Trump administration is pressuring Cuba’s socialist government to implement major economic reforms and change its way of governance in return for a lifting of sanctions. (Rodríguez, 7/2)

STATE WATCH6. US Sees 2 Dozen Heat Deaths As Swath Of States Endures Massive Heat Dome 

The National Weather Service recorded daily record highs and ties across dozens of observing sites over the Independence Day weekend. And an estimated 20,000 people died in extreme heat across Europe last month as heat waves continue due to human-caused climate change, Axios reported.

Axios: US Heat Wave Death Toll Grows Extreme heat gripping much of the U.S. has killed at least two dozen people over the past week, as about 40 million people remained under heat alerts Sunday. (Falconer, 7/5)

AP: Extreme Heat Adds To Strains On Data Centers And Tensions In Host Communities Hot weather of the kind sweeping the eastern U.S. drives up electricity demand for data centers, adding to their strain on power grids and worsening air quality for surrounding areas. The impact on communities like the racially diverse Sacred Heart neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts underscores why the artificial intelligence industry is feeling so much heat over the fast-sprouting facilities. Around the country, data centers have been blamed increasingly for a host of environmental ills. Some tech industry figures say the facilities have become lightning rods for concerns over broader economic and societal changes posed by the AI boom. (O’Brien and Huamani, 7/2)

AP: Heat Wave In France Saw 2,000 More Deaths, Says Public Health Authority Deaths surged by nearly a third in France during the hottest week of a record heat wave last month, the country’s public health authority said Friday, reporting at least 2,000 more deaths than in the previous week when temperatures were already climbing and filling emergency wards with heat victims. The new and still incomplete figures from Public Health France doubled its first preliminary estimate of at least 1,000 additional deaths that it gave last Sunday. That earlier estimate covered just three of the hottest days of extreme, deadly heat. (Leicester, 7/3)

On healthcare costs at the state level —

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Healthcare Costs Adding Up Significantly For Georgia’s School Districts The cost of healthcare for Georgia school systems has risen “astronomically” over the past 16 years, experts say — forcing educators to make tough choices about the services they’re able to provide for students. Fulton County, which approved a budget with a reported $57 million shortfall this year, budgeted $206 million for healthcare in its general fund next year. The DeKalb County School District plans to spend a total of $284 million for employee healthcare coverage. (Alexander, 7/4)

Modern Healthcare: Medica To Exit ACA Markets In Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas Medica is the latest health insurer to pare back its marketplace offerings. The nonprofit health insurance company said Wednesday it will no longer sell individual plans in Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma next year. The move will affect roughly 13,000 enrollees. Individual Affordable Care Act marketplace plans will still be offered in Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wisconsin. (Tong, 7/2)

The Colorado Sun: Judge Blocks Colorado Price Cap On The Prescription Drug Enbrel federal judge has temporarily blocked Colorado’s first-in-the-nation price cap on a specific prescription drug, saying that it likely runs afoul of legal precedent and federal patent law. (Ingold, 7/2)

The latest about immigration in the U.S. —

AP: New ICE Facility Could Speed Up Family And Child Deportations The Trump administration plans to open a 528-bed holding facility for migrant families and unaccompanied children next to an airport hub, positioning itself to speed up deportations. The location in Alexandria, Louisiana, would remove logistical headaches caused by wrangling children from foster homes and shelters across the country and not having anywhere to put them during final preparations for flight. Those obstacles were apparent last year when Guatemalan children were awoken at night and given almost no time to get to Harlingen, Texas, where they waited on an airport tarmac for hours. (Brook, 7/6)

The Texas Tribune and ProPublica: Records Reveal ‘Systemic Neglect’ In Immigrant’s Death Guards at an immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas, could see a detainee in his cell with one end of a bedsheet wrapped around his neck and the other tied to the door handle. If they opened the door, the sheet would tighten and strangle him. (Trevizo, 7/3)

KFF Health News: In California Governor’s Race, Voters Face Stark Choice On Immigrant Healthcare For decades, Californians have generally said that immigrants, who make up more than a quarter of the state’s population and a third of its labor force, are beneficial to the state and its economy. But budget instability and concerns about rising costs are spilling into a debate over the controversial and expensive policy of allowing low-income immigrants without legal status to receive state-funded health coverage. (Mai-Duc, 7/6)

News from around the nation —

ProPublica: Massachusetts Set To Extend Statute Of Limitations For Rape Cases With DNA Evidence Massachusetts’ deadline to prosecute rape cases will no longer be one of the strictest in the nation under a bill Gov. Maura Healey pledged to sign into law. State law currently bars nearly all rape prosecutions involving cases with adult victims after 15 years, making it difficult to charge someone after that deadline even in cases where new evidence is likely to lead to a conviction. The new law would ensure that if DNA is matched to a suspect after that 15-year window, prosecutors could file charges indefinitely. (Mariano, 7/2)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Measles Vaccinations Rise Slightly After Outbreak While more than 92% of Texas kindergarteners and 7th graders were fully vaccinated in the 2025-26 school year for each vaccine required to attend school, the coverage rates remained lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic, state data released Wednesday shows. (Langford and Keemahill, 7/2)

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: Ohio Melanoma Rates Top The National Average. Gen Z Is Still Tanning.  Millions of Americans still tan and skip sunscreen despite decades of warnings about skin cancer. Dermatologists say misinformation spreading online – particularly among Gen Z — is making the problem worse. (Mitchell, 7/4)

CBS News: Air Quality Alerts In And Around D.C. Warn Of ‘Very Unhealthy’ Pollution Levels After July 4th Fireworks People in and around Washington, D.C., are experiencing a substantial dip in air quality on Sunday, with officials warning that any amount of exposure to the outdoors could potentially come with health consequences. Researchers connected the shift in pollution levels to massive fireworks displays held to celebrate July 4th on Saturday night. A “purple” air quality alert was issued for the nation’s capital and parts of northern Virginia by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, a nonprofit organization that brings together local leaders in the region. (Czachor, 7/5)

OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS7. Hundreds Of People Across 18 States Infected With Severe Stomach Illness 

At least 20 have been hospitalized due to cyclospora, a parasite transmitted through food and water contaminated with feces that causes stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, and severe diarrhea, The New York Times reports. Also in the news: West Nile virus, tick-borne illnesses, and more.

The New York Times: Clusters Of Severe Stomach Illness Reported Across The U.S. More than 400 people across 18 states have been infected with cyclospora, a parasite that is transmitted through food and water contaminated with feces and causes stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting and severe diarrhea. At least 20 people have been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and no deaths have been reported. New York, Texas, Illinois and Michigan have the most cases so far, according to the C.D.C. and state health officials. (Rabin, 7/2)

CNN: Early, Intense West Nile Season May Signal A Severe Year For The Mosquito-Borne Illness, CDC Says  Much of the country is sizzling under record heat, but Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist in Houston, is heading out for his early morning walks as covered up as possible in a t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a hat, sweatpants, socks and sneakers. It’s not the heat he worries about so much as the mosquitoes. (Goodman, 7/2)

On the threats posed by ticks —

CIDRAP: Increase Of Tick-Borne Diseases In Illinois Highlights The Need To Prevent Tick Bites Year Round More than 6,400 Illinois residents were diagnosed as having a tick-borne disease from 2004 to 2022, with cases occurring in every county in the state and in every month of the year. That number represents dramatic growth in human cases of tick-borne diseases during that time and reflects the urgency of prevention efforts, according to a new study in Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases. (Bergeson, 7/2)

Vermont Public: A Once Rare Tickborne Illness Is On The Rise. This UVM Researcher Is Chasing A Cure  A blood parasite spread by deer ticks is on the rise across New England, and most of the existing treatments for it don’t work well in people who are immunocompromised. But a researcher at the University of Vermont has isolated a few drugs he thinks could change that, and this summer secured a $150,000 grant from the Bay Area Lyme Foundation to test them in mice, in hopes of developing the first-ever therapy created specifically to treat the condition babesiosis. (Giles, 7/2)

NBC News: More People Than Thought May Be At Risk For Red Meat Allergy Caused By Ticks Far more people may be at risk for alpha-gal syndrome, the tick-borne illness that triggers an allergy to red meat, than previously thought. Nearly a quarter of adults in five states where lone star ticks are prevalent are estimated to show signs that they’ve been bitten, according to new research published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Edwards, 7/2)

On candida auris, norovirus, and hantavirus —

NBC News: Drug-Resistant Fungus Candida Auris Still On The Rise In The U.S. A potentially deadly type of fungus that is almost untreatable continues to pose severe threats to healthcare facilities across the U.S., a new government study found. (Alvino, 7/3)

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