Power isn’t a word that we use very often in public health. Even for someone steeped in public health policy, we much more frequently discuss equity, interventions, community engagement, and of course the conditions that shape the public’s health. But power? Not so much. What brought it to mind was a training this morning on… Read More: Public Health Has a Power Problem: Being Right Isn’t Enough »
When Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Michigan this week, much of the coverage focused on what his victory meant for Democrats and the midterm elections. But I found myself thinking about something completely different: He’s an epidemiologist. Health professionals are certainly not new to Congress. Many physicians have served,… Read More: An Epidemiologist Knocks on the Doors of Congress »
As we move through 2026, our blog theme “Health in All Policies” continues to drive our public health discussions. This framework reminds us that well-being isn’t just about medicine or insurance. Instead, it is shaped by where we live, work, and age—our social, economic, and environmental conditions. A study recently published ahead-of-print in Medical Care… Read More: Diabetes and state Medicaid policy »
Teen screen time has become one of the most studied topics in adolescent health — and for good reason. In our first post, we covered three areas that screen time affects: physical health, mental health, and social development. This post takes a closer look at the mental health evidence — the research findings and the… Read More: Screen Time and Adolescence: A Deeper Dive on Mental Health »
Screen time is now a central part of adolescent life, and it is nearly unavoidable. Adolescents complete schoolwork online, watch video clips and television, play video games, engage in social media—all on devices. This begins a three-part series on screen time and adolescence. We review evidence and explore what we might do about it. In… Read More: Screen Time and Adolescence: Why It Matters More Than Ever »
When the world hands you lemons, you learn to make lemonade. In public health, locally sourced is even better. With federal public health guidance in disarray, it can be easy to forget that most public health is, and always has been, local. It is not the federal government that sanitizes water, inspects restaurants, or diagnoses… Read More: Hands-On Public Health: A Local, Campus Respiratory Virus Campaign »
Healthcare policy is back on voters’ minds. The Republican party has placed its bet on consumer-driven healthcare, framed as “delivering dollars to the American people”, as a winning strategy. While the idea is not new, there is a lot the public needs to learn about it. Decades of research in health economics has a lot… Read More: Health Economics and “Delivering Dollars to the American People” »
Faced with a federal government that is increasingly authoritarian, repressive, and hostile to public health, we must harness our radical imagination to re-envision our field. Many adults come to view dreaming as juvenile, trivial, escapist, or unproductive. But imagination is the lifeblood of creativity and a tool for seeing beyond our current problems. Our ability… Read More: Radical Imagination: Envisioning A New Public Health »
Over the past year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been battered by political interference that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Scientists and staff endured mass firings followed by partial rehiring, leaving employees describing themselves as “dead men walking”. In August, 180 shots were fired at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters,… Read More: Public health is not lost; it is local »
Veterans experiencing housing insecurity face severe health risks. They have high rates of chronic disease, mental health disorders, and substance use. These conditions drive emergency department visits and hospitalizations far above population norms. Homelessness and unstable housing are powerful social determinants of acute care use. Addressing them is essential to improve outcomes and reduce costs.… Read More: Hotspotting Hospitalization Risk in Housing-Insecure Veterans »
As we enter 2026, U.S. vaccine policy is undergoing one of its most dramatic transformations in decades, with profound implications for public health, trust in science, and the well-being of children and communities. These changes come on the heels of our declaration of Health in All Policies as The Medical Care Blog’s theme for 2026,… Read More: A Quiet Rewrite of American Vaccine Policy, and Why It… »
In our 2025 wrap-up, we recapped last year’s theme of political determinants of health. In this post, we apply that lens to sexual and reproductive health — part of this year’s focus on Health in All Policies. No doubt about it: politics and policy matter to our health As we’ve written here many times before,… Read More: Political drivers of sexual & reproductive health »
A new year brings a clear choice. In 2026, The Medical Care Blog will focus more directly on how policy decisions shape health. Not just health policy in isolation, but policies across and intersecting between housing, labor, education, transportation, climate, and criminal legal systems. This approach is often called Health in All Policies. The idea… Read More: Health in All Policies: The Medical Care Blog’s Focus for… »
Greetings, dear readers, and welcome to our 2025 wrap-up! In the US, 2025 has been a very challenging year for many in clinical and public health practice and research. With funding cuts, layoffs, and reductions-in-force, many of our readers (and yours truly) had to face the fact that our livelihoods were no longer secure. It… Read More: 2025: Our Year in Review »
For years, analysts warned that the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies, which were temporarily extended during the COVID-19 pandemic, masked the true cost trajectory of the individual market. This fall, that warning has become reality. The 2026 open enrollment window (Nov 1 – Jan 15, with a deadline of December 15 for coverage… Read More: Upcoming Premium Spikes in 2026: The Crisis Everyone Saw Coming »
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace Open Enrollment season starts November 1, 2025 in most states. The premiums insurers charge are increasing. And, with enhanced premium tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, out-of-pocket premiums are expected to increase drastically. Additionally, changes to Marketplace enrollment and eligibility rules in this year’s… Read More: 8 Things to Watch for the 2026 ACA Open Enrollment… »
WASHINGTON — Nationwide, states are racing to win their share of a new $50 billion rural health fund. But helping rural hospitals, as originally envisioned, is quickly becoming a quaint idea. Rather, states should submit applications that “rebuild and reshape” how health care is delivered in rural communities, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services official Abe Sutton… Read More: States Jostle Over $50B Rural Health Fund as Trump’s Medicaid… »
What just happened, and why people are talking about it In late September 2025, FDA announced it would start a process to add language to acetaminophen labels noting a possible association with autism and ADHD when used during pregnancy, and it sent a notice to physicians [pdf] summarizing the concern. The move followed statements from… Read More: Autism and Acetaminophen use during Pregnancy: reviewing the evidence »
This article was first published on KFF Health News. It also ran on CNN. It is republished here for free. While plowing a wheat field in rural Washington state in the 1990s, William Wallace spotted a gray plane overhead that he believed was releasing chemicals to make him sick. The rancher began to suspect that all white… Read More: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Chemtrail? New… »
Prioritization is at the center of affordable and supportive housing decisions. This is because resources such as these are extremely limited, and the needs of those who need housing support are complex. Communities must decide how to fairly and effectively determine who should receive housing opportunities first, and increasingly, those decisions rely on structured, coordinated… Read More: Assessment of Health for Housing Prioritization »
Given the impending evisceration of Medicaid, potential cuts to Medicare, and reductions in medical foreign aid, many ill individuals will face decreased access to supplies, equipment, and staff, necessitating difficult decisions about who receives care and how much treatment they will receive. Those making these decisions will have the uncomfortable choice of refusing treatments. This… Read More: Difficult Circumstances Require Tough Decisions »
Imagine being discharged from the hospital, IV bandage still fresh, only to recover on a sidewalk with no shelter, no food, and no doctor to check on you. In the turbulent landscape of American healthcare, medical respite (MR) services have emerged as one of the most promising interventions for people experiencing homelessness. Medical respite programs… Read More: Bridging Recovery and Housing: Medical Respite Care in a Shifting… »
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its proposed rule for the 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. And big changes may be coming–including some potential for payments to primary care to increase, and for payments to other specialties to decrease. Though the changes are controversial, they might be just what primary care needs.… Read More: A Rule Change for Medicare Payments: Could This Finally Be… »
If you have been following the debate about Medicaid cuts, you know it’s a giant program, America’s largest in terms of the number of people it covers. But you may be confused about how many people Medicaid actually covers. Is it 71 million Americans, the number most commonly used in The New York Times and… Read More: The Mystery of How Many People Are on Medicaid »
If there was ever a time to flex our collective muscles for creative language and communication strategies for health equity, it’s now. The political landscape has shifted dramatically away from equity and social justice. Ensuring that we have adequate messaging tools to address health inequities and the social drivers of health is more important now… Read More: Language and Communication Strategies for Health Equity »
The Medicaid cuts are dire in the Big Beautiful Bill. Some of the forthcoming changes and cuts are still a couple of years away, but now is the time to prepare. We should remember how important Medicaid is and why, and continue to talk widely about its value and its challenges. We should also understand… Read More: Medicaid Cuts are Dire–Here is Some of Our Best Writing… »
This post from KFF Health News is republished here in line with The Medical Care Blog’s declaration that our theme for 2025 is ‘the Political Determinants of Health‘. As fired and retired scientists rallied outside in the Atlanta heat, an advisory panel that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. handpicked to replace experts he’d fired earlier met… Read More: Kennedy’s Vaccine Advisers Sow Doubts as Scientists Protest US Pivot… »
There has been a constant battle for Medicaid in America – from states slashing Medicaid reimbursements or refusing to expand access, to Congress now threatening to cut and restrict Medicaid funding altogether. The program, which funds 78.4 million of our most vulnerable patients, is a necessity to primary care. Medicaid beneficiaries look like pregnant women… Read More: Undervalued and Underfunded: Primary Care’s Plea for Medicaid »
The transition to value-based care (VBC) is fundamentally transforming the healthcare landscape, and 2025 is poised to be an inflection point to see whether the promise of VBC can be realized. For healthcare professionals – and especially for ambulatory care practices – embracing the nuances of this dynamic environment is essential not only for delivering… Read More: Value-Based Care, Cost Management, and Tech Innovations »
It is official, the cause of COVID-19 was clearly and definitively a lab leak! How do we know? Well, the White House created an official website declaring as much. Topped with an obsequious image of President Trump emerging from pitch darkness (presumably to reveal the truth?), the site looks like something created by the satirical… Read More: It Was a Lab Leak! So Says the White House »
About a month ago (March 27th to be exact), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a sweeping reorganization plan. The government will create a new umbrella agency: the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). Some have hailed this as a bold step toward modernization. In effect, the AHA will absorb and restructure… Read More: The Administration for a Healthy America: Streamlining or Sidestepping Public… »
When we talk about chronic illness, the conversation usually centers on medications, treatment plans, or physical symptoms. But for those who live with long-term health conditions, it’s often about so much more than what’s happening in the body. Chronic illness doesn’t just disrupt routines, it affects how people work, plan, connect with others, and, crucially,… Read More: When Health Meets Financial Insecurity »
We are in a tumultuous time of upheaval and reckoning in public health and healthcare. The Trump administration launches daily attacks across sectors that impact health nationally and globally. As public health and healthcare leaders and experts, we are in a unique position to speak out against these injustices. We have deep understanding, experience, and… Read More: Five Ways to Advocate for Public Health »
As an epidemiologist and assistant professor dedicated to the education of primary care physicians, I feel compelled to address the alarming measles outbreak currently unfolding in Texas and neighboring states. This situation not only underscores the resurgence of a disease once considered successfully contained but also highlights the detrimental impact of disinformation and recent government… Read More: Measles Outbreak Updates: A case study on the new era… »
This article is from a partnership that includes WABE, NPR, and KFF Health News. It was republished for free. It was selected to run as a part of this year’s theme at The Medical Care Blog, highlighting the Political Determinants of Health. On a sunny weekday in Atlanta, a small crowd of people gathered for a rally… Read More: Current, Former CDC Staff Warn Against Slashing Support to Local… »
The recent budget resolution passed by the House of Representatives proposes significant spending cuts, including approximately $880 billion from programs under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which encompasses Medicaid. This proposal has raised concerns about potential reductions in Medicaid funding, a program that currently provides health coverage to over 72… Read More: Defense of Medicaid in an Era of Government Efficiency »
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House sent a clear signal about Medicaid to Republicans across the country: Requiring enrollees to prove they are working, volunteering, or going to school is back on the table. The day after Trump’s inauguration, South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster asked federal officials to approve a work requirement… Read More: As States Mull Medicaid Work Requirements, Two With Experience Scale… »
While training to be a psychometrician I was blessed/cursed more than 50 years ago with a favorable response to a research proposal to improve tools that researchers increasingly used for surveying health outcomes but were rarely evaluated psychometrically. Knowing little about health, I found very useful the WHO’s 1948 definition of it as “a state… Read More: Surveying Health Outcomes That Patients Are Most Qualified to Evaluate:… »
A lot has been said about the Project 2025 initiative including some discussion of its implications for public health in the United States. Representing a significant collaboration of more than 100 conservative organizations in the United States, Project 2025 certainly carries weight even if its specific role in the new administration remains uncertain. But what… Read More: Project 2025 and Public Health »
Happy New Year to our readers, and thank you for joining us as we welcome in 2025. Two weeks ago, we took time to review and celebrate our first-ever blog theme: Climate Change and Public Health. We learned a lot during our first year with a theme, and we will take those lessons into 2025.… Read More: Political Determinants of Health: A Consensus Statement for 2025 »
Hi, My name is Dr. Ben King and I’m the new Chair of the Medical Care section of the American Public Health Association (APHA). I am beyond excited about what the next couple of years have in store for us as a professional organization. I also recognize that we are entering a time of immense… Read More: Medical Care Update: Incoming Chair’s Message »
Women’s health is a broad and multifaceted concept that extends far beyond reproductive anatomy and sexual health. Historically, the focus of women’s health care and research has centered on reproduction, often overshadowing other critical aspects of physical and mental health and wellness. However, women’s health encompasses a wide array of issues, from cardiovascular and autoimmune… Read More: Women’s Health is More than Just Reproductive Health »
*This post was originally published on KFF Health News on November 8, 2025. It is published with open permission by that site. A new federal watchdog audit is ratcheting up pressure on government officials to crack down on billions of dollars in overcharges linked to Medicare Advantage home visits. But so far, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid… Read More: Watchdog Calls for Tighter Scrutiny of Medicare Advantage Home Visits »
Note: The 2024 election wraps-up in short order. KFF once again published a thoughtful analysis of competing positions on health care–in this case the Affordable Care Act. And we are republishing that here. Enjoy. -The Editors Health care is suddenly front and center in the final sprint to the presidential election, and the outcome will… Read More: Presidential Election Puts Affordable Care Act Back in the Bull’s-Eye »
Note: It’s election season. And time to take a look at the health policy positions of the presidential candidates. KFF published this thorough and well-sourced analysis of the candidates’ competing positions on everything from health care and abortion to public health and gun violence. Enjoy. -The Editors The general election campaign is underway, spotlighting former… Read More: Compare the Candidates on Health Care Policy »
This post was originally published on KFF Health News. It is published with open permission by that site. Measles is on the rise in the United States. In the first quarter of this year, the number of cases was about 17 times what it was, on average, during the same period in each of the four… Read More: 4 Ways Vaccine Skeptics Mislead You on Measles and More »
Caring about the environment can feel like an uphill battle, where our individual efforts can seem small against the colossal issue of climate change. But working together–being just a little less of an individual in this battle–can feel uplifting and make a more significant difference. Environmental activist and author, Bill McKibben, joined Cal State LA’s… Read More: Be a Little Less of an Individual: On Climate Change… »
Every little bit helps. That is one of the key messages from our conversations on public health, climate change and hope with climate journalists Sammy Roth and Caleigh Wells. Each visited California State University Los Angeles as part of our Department of Public Health’s annual book read. All faculty and students in the department received… Read More: Every Little Bit Helps: On Climate Change and Hope With… »
The pharmaceutical industry is a behemoth in the United States. In 2023, the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies had a market capitalization of $3.78 trillion dollars. Pharma companies spent more than $15 million dollars in contributions through political action committees during the 2020 election cycle. Analysts constantly see new avenues of generating revenues and profits for… Read More: Private In-equity: Whose Interests Do We Serve? »
Climate change is undeniably a bleak story. Recent data–from the top of a remote volcanic mountain–show that carbon dioxide is accumulating in our atmosphere faster than ever. Its concentration has reached levels far beyond those in any other time of human existence. This bad news is balanced, however, against a highly-regarded good news report that… Read More: A Series on Climate Change and Hope »