Heading into the midterm elections, high healthcare costs rank among voters’ biggest concerns. But lately, there’s a twist giving the issue new momentum on campaign agendas: a focus on fraud in government health programs.

The administration of President Donald Trump has used claims of widespread wrongdoing to justify investigations, ...Read more

In March 2025, when California ran out of Medicaid funds to pay doctors and hospitals, the state borrowed $3.4 billion to keep the program afloat. It was, as a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted, nothing new. Indeed, a handful of times over the years, the state had taken out internal, short-term loans to sustain its healthcare program ...Read more

Late last month, the Trump administration announced that it had cut 760,000 people from the Affordable Care Act rolls, claiming fraud and improper enrollments and touting billions in potential taxpayer savings.

Not all of those kicked off were fraudulently enrolled, KFF Health News has learned. Insurance industry sources said the Centers for ...Read more

Ultraprocessed foods have a terrible reputation.

Studies have linked them with multiple chronic diseases. Journalists and health influencers characterize them as poison. Some public health experts call for a global halt to producing and consuming them.

But the debate around ultraprocessed foods is not nearly as settled as it ...Read more

The U.S. Senate candidates in Texas could hardly be more different: James Talarico, a former seminarian turned Democratic state lawmaker who speaks in calm cadences about love and empathy, and Ken Paxton, the pugnacious Republican state attorney general who speaks about a refusal to compromise.

They share an enemy, though. They dislike social ...Read more

Medical health professions use the term “medical home” to describe the partnership between you, your child and your child’s medical team. It is not a house, an office or a hospital, but a plan to care for a child, keeping in mind all aspects of their health, including their family’s wellness.

The American Academy of Pediatrics ...Read more

After the third day of squirting an experimental drug up his nose, Dylan Meetze felt horrible.

“It was like I was underwater, like it took the most to do anything,” he said.

Meetze stopped taking the drug but endured fatigue and anxiety for months afterward, and his eyes and muscles twitched, he said.

He had taken BPC-157, a peptide drug ...Read more

BALTIMORE -- Studies have shown that converting the body’s metabolism from burning sugars and starches to proteins and fats can relieve certain neurological and mental illnesses that have not responded well to standard therapies, but most doctors have limited experience with using diets for therapy or partnering with nutritionists.

...Read more

When Victoria Bayle was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 46, her neurologist gave her a prognosis of 10 years.

She didn’t know anyone in her family with the condition, nor were there medications she could take to slow the disease’s progression.

The resident of Edinboro, in Erie County, went on a road trip with...Read more

People often joke that their favorite snack is “like crack” or call themselves “chocoholics” in jest.

But can someone really be addicted to food in the same way they could be hooked on substances such as alcohol or nicotine?

As an addiction psychiatrist and researcher with experience in treating eating disorders and ...Read more

The year 2026 has been an expensive one for social media platforms.

Since March, YouTube and Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, have settled or paid out in multiple lawsuits to the tune of more than US$17 billion for allegedly acting negligently, deliberately designing their platforms to hook kids and misleading the ...Read more

Treating pregnant women’s depression with a short course of talk therapy doesn’t just improve their health – it can also shape how their babies’ brains develop before birth. That’s the finding of a new study we co-authored, published in the journal Nature Communications.

The study is part of an ongoing research project that ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — It is unclear when Billy Joel will perform again.

The 77-year-old singer has to take "a series of tests" before being able to tour again, he told the Hollywood Reporter in a health update following his 2025 brain disorder diagnosis.

"I'm not allowed to drive," Joel said in the interview published Thursday. "And I can't do ...Read more

NEW YORK — Songmaster and avid motorcycle lover Billy Joel is unable to drive and needs to undergo further tests to gauge if or when he can perform again, the legendary performer said in a recent interview.

“I have to take a series of tests before I know,” he told The Hollywood Reporter as he prepared to auction off more than 70 ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Medicare Advantage plans are shrinking their footprint across the Sunshine State in 2027, forcing returning enrollees to re-examine their coverage before the Dec. 7 deadline.

Florida leads the nation in total Medicare Advantage plan discontinuations for 2027, dropping 8.7% from 611 plan offerings to 560 as insurers ...Read more

It’s election season, and we’re all awash in political ads, some dealing with issues like high grocery prices, others seeking to distract us from those issues. But one topic deserves voters’ attention, whether or not you see it in commercials: the impact that the upcoming elections will have on our health.

When the Trump administration ...Read more

What’s living in your gut determines whether you have a fever reaction to a vaccination, new research shows.

Fever is the most common reaction to a vaccination and could lead some people to delay or forego future shots, especially for modern vaccines such as the mRNA vaccine developed to fight COVID-19.

“The fear of vaccine-induced adverse...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota has confirmed another 18 cases of measles in the past week — one of its highest single-week totals in decades — amid two ongoing outbreaks in the state’s least-vaccinated counties.

“The case count will very likely grow in the days and weeks ahead,” the Minnesota Department of Health warned in a written ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — Dr. Greg Murphy is a urologist who has worked in healthcare for decades, including with East Carolina University’s medical school and healthcare system.

Rep. Greg Murphy is a congressman who has represented North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District since 2019, in a part of the state where ECU is a dominant employer and ...Read more