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As if the world couldn’t get any more bleak, today Texas announced the first death in the ongoing measles outbreak: a school-aged child who was not vaccinated. (Jessica Karl, 2/26)

In December 2020, the U.S. government’s involvement in addressing the pandemic of long Covid officially began when Congress allocated $1.15 billion to the National Institutes of Health for research into the lasting health consequences of Covid-19. For people suffering from long Covid, the move offered hope. Just over four years later, on Feb. 19, President Trump disbanded the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Long COVID, as part of an executive order titled “Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.” (Steven Phillips, 2/27)

The public and pharmaceutical companies are calling for changes in drug regulation and the costs of medicines. They are right to do so. Companies want to see products approved faster for financial reasons, and patients want medicines that can improve their lives. The two are inextricably tied, and realizing those goals requires tossing out the broken system we have in exchange for a superior system that is richer in data and evidence. It also means that we all have to embrace the simple truth that taking these chemicals will always come with risk. (Eric D. Perakslis and Michael Stebbins, 2/27)

If the “big, beautiful bill” that House Republicans barely passed on Tuesday night ever translates into actual government policy, it will put the states in a huge, hairy hole. Many states would be faced with some ugly choices regarding their Medicaid programs: dropping people from the rolls, slashing their benefits or making up the difference by cutting spending on other priorities, such as education, public safety and transportation. (Karen Tumulty, 2/26)

Most people only hear about end-of-life care when a former president goes into hospice or when news stories report on sad cases, inspiring cases, or crimes involving hospice staff: Like the time a young Kansas City hospice patient got to cuddle a pig and received messages from the Royals and the Chiefs. Or when a hospice caretaker was arrested and booked for abandoning an elderly cancer patient. (Yvette Walker, 2/27)

Gov. Wes Moore’s 2026 budget makes deep, dangerous cuts to services for Marylanders with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD). The numbers are staggering — cutting about $235 million in state funds and forfeiting $215 million of additional federal Medicaid matching funds. Total cuts to Maryland services for our family, friends and neighbors with IDD — things like autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and other disabilities — exceeds $450 million. (Rick Callahan, David A. Ervin, Steve Kenner and Karen Lee, 2/26)