Latest California Healthline Stories
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Supreme Court Upholds Bans on Gender-Affirming Care
The Supreme Court this week said Tennessee may continue to enforce its law banning most types of gender-affirming care for minors. The ruling is likely to greenlight similar laws in two dozen states. And the Senate is preparing to vote on a budget reconciliation bill that includes even deeper Medicaid cuts than the House version. Victoria Knight of Axios, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
With Property Seized and Federal Funding Uncertain, Montana Asbestos Clinic Fights for Its Life
The Center for Asbestos Related Disease in Libby, Montana, closed in May after a court judgment allowing BNSF Railway to seize its assets. Now, the clinic’s federal funding is in jeopardy, too.
Have Job-Based Health Coverage at 65? You May Still Want To Sign Up for Medicare
Patient advocates say they frequently hear from people who thought they didn’t need to sign up for Medicare when they turned 65 because they had group health coverage. That delay sometimes forces people to cover medical expenses themselves.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': RFK Jr. Upends Vaccine Policy, After Promising He Wouldn’t
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week did something he had promised not to do: He fired every member of the scientific advisory committee that recommends which vaccines should be given to whom. And he replaced them, in some cases, with vaccine skeptics. Meanwhile, hundreds of employees of the National Institutes of Health sent an open letter to the agency’s director, accusing the Trump administration of policies that “undermine the NIH mission.” Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
Role Reversal: Millions of Kids Are Caregivers for Elders. Why Their Numbers Might Grow.
As state officials anticipate Medicaid funding cuts that could strip resources for those with disabilities and chronic health conditions, an army of unpaid caregivers waits in the wings: children. At least 5.4 million kids are estimated to be caring for family members at home, a number likely to rise if Medicaid cuts hit professional home-based services.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Bill With Billions in Health Program Cuts Passes House
The House narrowly passed a budget reconciliation bill, including billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy along with billions of dollars in cuts to health program spending. But the Senate is expected to make major changes to the measure before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature. This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico.
Trump’s DOJ Accuses Medicare Advantage Insurers of Paying ‘Kickbacks’ for Primo Customers
The Department of Justice alleges that several major health insurers paid brokerages “hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks” to get agents to steer consumers into their Medicare Advantage plans, allegations the insurers strongly dispute.
In Bustling NYC Federal Building, HHS Offices Are Eerily Quiet
Public health experts and advocates say that Health and Human Services regional offices, like the one in New York City, form the connective tissue between the federal government and locally based services.
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 Rovner and Arthur Allen.
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.