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When Jessica Chamberlain went to sign up for health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for 2026, she not prepared for the sticker shock. Last year, Chamberlain was paying $59.67 in monthly premiums. This year, she would be paying nearly $100. The 43-year-old mother of two from Illinois said she was floored to see her monthly premiums were nearly doubling. (Kekatos, 3/19)

2026 is the year of the “Connecticut option.” On Thursday, the Human Services Committee passed a Connecticut option proposal put forth by Senate Democrats — separate from the policy proposal by the same name that Gov. Ned Lamont has been touting on the campaign trail and mentioned in his State of the State address in February. (Golvala, 3/19)

More news about the health care industry —

Maryland regulators fined Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company $80,000 and ordered it to stop reducing payments on certain doctor-billed services — a practice that could leave patients on the hook for more of their health care costs. (Hille and Bazos, 3/20)

Providence is exploring the sale of its health insurance arm as the system seeks to improve its finances. The Renton, Washington-based nonprofit is weighing several strategic options for Providence Health Plan, including a possible divestment. It has not specified a timeline or publicly identified potential buyers. The 51-hospital chain is in the middle of an estimated $2 billion financial turnaround that includes cuts to administrative positions and the sale of hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. (Tepper, 3/19)

Two major medtech companies recently were hit by cyberattacks, calling into question how exposed hospitals could be to such incidents that take place beyond their own walls. Stryker announced March 12 a cyberattack affected its internal Microsoft network worldwide, causing disruptions to order processing, manufacturing and shipping. A company spokesperson said Wednesday the company believes the incident has been contained and is bringing its systems back online, prioritizing those that directly support customers, ordering and shipping. Also on March 12, Intuitive Surgical said it was hit by a cyberattack that exposed customer information and employee and corporate data. (Dubinsky, 3/19)

Law firms working with healthcare organizations say more mergers and acquisitions are likely on the way. The overwhelming majority of respondents to a Modern Healthcare survey of more than 50 law firms said dealmaking-related services are the most frequently in demand. Healthcare organizations are also commonly seeking services related to government compliance, with firms foreseeing heightened regulatory scrutiny concerning finances and billing practices. (Davis, 3/19)

Also —

An upstate New York man admitted to leaving harassing and threatening voicemail messages to a family member of slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as he pleaded guilty to cyberstalking in federal court Thursday. Shane Daley, 40, was accused by federal prosecutors in August of placing multiple calls to a Thompson family member immediately after the December 2024 shooting and expressing glee about the insurance executive’s killing. (3/19)

A federal judge said the government overreached by issuing a declaration that called treatments like puberty blockers and surgeries unsafe and ineffective for young people experiencing gender dysphoria, according to a ruling Thursday in Oregon. Judge Mustafa Kasubhai’s ruling was centered on Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. not going through the proper administrative procedures when issuing the declaration in December. The declaration also warned doctors that they could be excluded from federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid if they provide these treatments. (3/20)

On vaccines —

Days after a federal judge said the Department of Health and Human Services’ vaccine committee members were improperly appointed, the agency is now considering whether to find a new slate of members for the panel or appeal the court’s ruling, panel members said. The future of the committee was thrown into question after one member of the panel on Thursday announced that the committee would be dismantled. Hours later he said his earlier conclusion was based on miscommunication. The panel is charged with making vaccine recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Calfas and Essley Whyte, 3/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: �鶹Ů�� Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Schedule Changes Blocked — For Now
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s effort to change how the federal government recommends vaccines against childhood diseases was dealt at least a temporary setback in federal court this week. A judge in Massachusetts sided with a coalition of public health groups arguing that changes to the vaccine schedule violated federal law. The Trump administration said it would appeal the judge’s ruling. (Rovner, 3/19)

On autism and MAHA —

Autism scientists and advocates met Thursday to develop an agenda for autism research, the first gathering of a group that hopes to command the attention of Congress and private organizations, in response to health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reshaping the federal autism advisory committee to support his agenda. (Broderick, 3/19)

Springer Nature has retracted more than three dozen publications that relied on a problematic dataset, the publisher confirmed to MedPage Today. All 38 of the papers, conference proceedings, and book chapters involved a dataset that purported to offer images of the faces of children with and without autism. However, there were major problems with how it was put together. (Robertson, 3/19)

The 2026 farm bill now working its way through Congress contains a number of provisions at odds with the Make America Healthy Again movement, particularly when it comes to pesticides and factory farming. One less-noticed amendment would allow tobacco farmers to receive more disaster and emergency funds — a move critics say is out of step with public health goals and MAHA’s vow to lower chronic disease rates in the U.S. (Todd, 3/20)

More news about the Trump administration —

The number of children being held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined dramatically in recent weeks, as the Trump administration scaled back some of its most aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. Earlier this year, after a surge of arrests in Minnesota and elsewhere, hundreds of children were being held with their parents at a federal detention center in Dilley, Texas, where families described poor medical care, inadequate food and water and little education for children. (Mervosh, Jordan and Aleaziz, 3/20)

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought reportedly said in 2023 and 2024 he wants to put federal workers “in trauma.” He appears to have done it. A new survey of federal workers found that, government wide, only 32 percent of the federal workforce is satisfied with and engaged in their jobs. The numbers are particularly stark at certain larger agencies: Only 20 percent of the Department of Health and Human Services staff is satisfied; along with 22.5 percent of the Treasury Department and 8.1 percent of the few employees remaining at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Johansen, 3/19)

Callers hoping to voice complaints about federal animal testing with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this week instead reached what sounded like the voicemail for a popular pizza chain after a “rogue” staffer changed the phone’s outgoing message. The White Coat Waste Project (WCWP), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to “expose and close the U.S. government’s $20 billion animal testing business,” urged social media followers last Friday morning to call HHS and demand the agency cut funding for cat testing at a National Institutes of Health-funded lab at the University of Missouri. (Brams, 3/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Listen: Trump’s NIH ‘Reset’ Is Driving Away Scientists
The past year has been rough for the National Institutes of Health, which underwent cuts to its workforce and research funding. Now, the NIH is facing a new challenge: brain drain. Thousands of employees totaling about 20% of the agency’s staff have left in the tumult of President Donald Trump’s second term. Some scientists fear this exodus will mean fewer new treatments and diminish the government’s ability to respond to disease outbreaks and other public health crises. (Pradhan, 3/20)

Hundreds of individualized treatments for rare diseases could become available over the next decade — but only if government regulators handle the new therapeutics properly. (Payne, 3/19)

U.S. service members will now be granted religious exemptions from grooming standards only on “sincerely held religious beliefs,” according to a recent Pentagon memorandum. Current service members and those applying for military service who request an exception for religious reasons must provide “a sworn written attestation affirming the requester’s belief is sincerely held and religious in nature,” according to the March 11 Department of Defense memorandum. (Stassis, 3/19)

A 31-year-old Georgia woman has been charged with murder by police who say she took pills to induce an illegal abortion. If state prosecutors decide to move forward with the murder charge brought by local police against Alexia Moore, her case would be one of the first instances of a woman being charged for terminating a pregnancy in Georgia since it passed a 2019 law banning most abortions. (Bynum, 3/19)

House lawmakers are deliberating sending a bill to Gov. Tate Reeves that would make it illegal for doctors to prescribe medication that could be used to induce abortion to patients in Mississippi. (Paffenroth, 3/19)

In a quick hearing that ended in opponents yelling “shame,” the Ohio House Health Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would effectively add a 24-hour waiting period for abortion care. (Tebben, 3/19)

Wellspring Health Access has shifted to follow the new law, Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access in Casper, told WyoFile on Wednesday. The clinic is serving patients whose last menstrual period lines up with the tight timeline, Burkhart told WyoFile, and is abiding by the law by screening for a heartbeat. (Harris and Klingsporn, 3/19)

Massachusetts health care professionals are now providing abortions to more people out of state than residents. And a new report released by the state’s Department of Public Health this week suggests most of those appointments are happening without a single in-person visit. (Reale, 3/19)

In other reproductive health care news —

Pesticide exposure may affect the health of a baby even before a person becomes pregnant, according to a new study released last week. (Kutz, 3/19)

It’s difficult to put yourself in the place of Cherise Doyley, a pregnant mother of three who found herself facing a judge while in labor at the University of Florida Health hospital in downtown Jacksonville. She had arrived at the facility with a plan for her birth. She wanted to try for a vaginal delivery, but she understood from years of experience as a professional birthing doula that things don’t always go as planned. (Yurkanin, 3/20)

The Louisiana Abortion Fund (LAAF) and SHER Lab are co-hosting a community block party this weekend in the Tremé where attendees can get free food, music and STI testing and meet representatives of dozens of local health organizations. ... It is the first year the organizations will be partnering to host the block party. In previous years, both organizations hosted similar but separate block parties. (Yehiya, 3/19)

Tooth decay can begin very early in a child’s life. If five states ban fluoride in drinking water, the costs to Medicaid for a significant increase in kids with cavities could top $40 million within three years, a new analysis finds. CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, a nonprofit which advocates for fluoridation, used Medicaid claims data and survey responses to predict the outcomes if the five states — Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri and Oklahoma — stopped adding fluoride to water systems. (Edwards, 3/19)

Two dozen states, along with more than a dozen cities and counties, sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, challenging the Trump administration’s repeal of a scientific finding that had been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. A rule finalized by the EPA last month revoked the 2009 endangerment finding that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The Obama-era finding had been the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet. (Daly, 3/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Oz Escalates Medicaid Fraud Claims Against States After Focus On Minnesota
The Trump administration has signaled a willingness to halt billions of dollars in federal health payments to multiple states, mirroring moves they made against Minnesota. The specific target is Medicaid, the public health insurance program that pairs state and federal money. Federal officials have announced unprecedented actions in Minnesota this year, declaring they could withhold over $2 billion in payments slated for the state and claw back nearly $260 million from last year. (Sable-Smith, 3/20)

Maya Kowalski, the woman at the center of the Netflix documentary “Take Care of Maya,” has filed a sworn declaration in court proceedings accusing former family attorney Greg Anderson of inappropriate comments and interactions while he represented her, explosive allegations that could reshape the already turbulent next phase of the long-running case arising from her treatment at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. (Barfield, 3/19)

The dangerous heat wave shattering March records all over the U.S. Southwest is more than just another extreme weather blip. It’s the latest next-level weather wildness that is occurring ever more frequently as Earth’s warming builds. Experts said unprecedented and deadly weather extremes that sometimes strike at abnormal times and in unusual places are putting more people in danger. For example, the Southwest is used to coping with deadly heat, but not months ahead of schedule, including a 110-degree Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) reading in the Arizona desert on Thursday that smashed the highest March temperature recorded in the U.S. (Borenstein, 3/20)

On the gun violence epidemic —

New York state has launched a pilot program to integrate firearm access and injury risk screening into emergency department visits. The initiative, supported by a $1.5 million investment from the New York State Office of Gun Violence Prevention, expands New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention program to providers at three hospitals, according to a March 19 news release from Gov. Kathy Hochul. (Kuchno, 3/19)

A Missouri appeals court is weighing whether the City of St. Louis can require gun owners to lock up their firearms if they want to leave them in an unattended parked vehicle. (Lippmann, 3/19)

At the end of a seemingly ubiquitous commercial for telehealth company Ro, a characteristically flabbergasted Charles Barkley speaks for us all when he remarks, “Wait, you’re telling me they have a GLP-1 pill for weight loss now?” They do – and it turns out to be as wildly popular as its injectable predecessors. (Tirrell, 3/19)

Novo Nordisk said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a higher dosage of its Wegovy weight-loss medication, a boost for the Danish drugmaker as it faces growing competition in the obesity market. The group said Thursday that the FDA had expedited approval of the Wegovy injection with a higher dose based on results from a trial that showed 20.7% mean weight loss for participants with obesity. (Look and Orru, 3/19)

The blockbuster weight loss drug sold as Ozempic and Wegovy will soon go generic in countries that are home to 40 percent of the world’s population, significantly lowering the price of a costly medicine that had been largely unaffordable to nearly all but the wealthiest people. On Saturday, Novo Nordisk, the company that until now has had a monopoly on selling the drug, will lose patent protection in several of the world’s most populous countries. The first generic versions are expected to arrive in India as soon as this weekend. In the coming months, the generics are also expected to become available in China, Canada, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. (Robbins, Tobin, Nelson, Travelli and K.B., 3/19)

One of Eli Lilly & Co.’s most highly anticipated experimental medicines helped diabetic patients lose more weight than any drug currently on the market, underscoring its potential in the increasingly crowded race for next-generation therapies. Patients on the highest dose of the drug, called retatrutide, lost 15.3% of their body weight on average using a measure that includes those who discontinued treatment, Lilly said in a statement Thursday. The late-stage results handily beat earlier trials of the company’s diabetes blockbuster Mounjaro. (Muller, 3/19)

The companies developing new weight-loss medicines have a problem: the balance of power has shifted, and patients are bailing out of their clinical trials. People who don’t lose weight can quickly figure out that they were assigned to take a placebo instead of the real drug. And with highly effective obesity medications on the market — Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk A/S’s Wegovy shot and pill — that are getting cheaper, there’s little reason to stay in a study that doesn’t yield the intended benefits. (Muller, Furlong and Kresge, 3/19)

A molecule produced in abundance by pythons following a large meal could hold the key to developing a new class of weight loss drugs with fewer side effects, according to a study published Thursday by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and two other institutions. (Ingold, 3/19)

More pharma and tech developments —

The FDA approved linerixibat (Lynavoy) as the first drug indicated for cholestatic pruritus stemming from primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), drugmaker GSK announced on Thursday. PBC is a rare but serious autoimmune disease where bile flow from the liver is disrupted. The vast majority (89%) of PBC patients experience an internal itch -- thought to result from bile acids in circulation -- that affects sleep, quality of life, and is sometimes so debilitating it can necessitate transplant even in the absence of liver failure. (Ingram, 3/19)

Novartis said Friday it was buying an experimental breast cancer drug from Delaware-based Synnovation Therapeutics for $2 billion upfront. The deal includes includes up to another $1 billion if the drug reaches certain milestones. (Joseph, 3/20)

Kristin Leite, 38, spends about an hour organizing her “stack” for the week. “In the morning, I take four powders and about five capsules,” said Leite, an esthetician who lives in Tampa, Fla. She pops around five more in the afternoon, and at night she swallows six or seven capsules. (O'Brien, 3/18)

Verily raised a $300 million investment round to accelerate its work in artificial intelligence and precision health as it also moves out from under the corporate umbrella of Alphabet. The massive round was led by Series X Capital, and includes an investment from Alphabet, who will remain a significant minority investor, but will no longer have a controlling stake in the company, Verily said in a press release. (Landi, 3/19)

Perplexity is making its debut on the consumer health market. The artificial intelligence-enabled search engine announced the launch of Perplexity Health, which looks to provide users with personalized responses to health questions. The AI tool relies on medical literature and user-provided patient records to answer health-related inquiries. It also offers an individualized dashboard with insight on users’ behavioral patterns such as their sleep and activity levels. (Famakinwa, 3/19)

Older adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes had a higher risk of dementia, a U.S. prospective cohort study found. ... An estimated 64.5% of dementia cases in people with type 1 diabetes could be attributed to the condition, Jennifer Weuve, MPH, ScD, of Boston University School of Public Health, and colleagues reported in Neurology. (Monaco, 3/19)

People with a genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease did not have an expected increase in cognitive decline or dementia if they consumed relatively large amounts of meat, a Swedish cohort study showed. (George, 3/19)

It might not seem like it at the time if the grandkids are making a ruckus. But babysitting them might be good for Grandma and Grandpa’s brains. A recent study in the journal Psychology and Aging suggested that grandparents’ memory, verbal fluency and other cognitive skills were fortified by the caregiving of their grandkids. (Levesque, 3/19)

In other health and wellness news —

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that nearly 90,000 bottles of children’s ibuprofen sold nationwide have been recalled. In an enforcement report, the federal agency said that 89,592 bottles of Strides Pharma’s Children’s Ibuprofen Oral Suspension are being recalled due to the “presence of foreign substance.” (Brockington, 3/20)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has ended its investigation into a Salmonella outbreak tied to moringa leaf powder. A total of 97 cases have been recorded, with 32 new cases since the CDC’s previous update on January 29. Illness onsets ranged from August 22, 2025, to February 27, 2026. The outbreak resulted in 26 hospitalizations but no deaths and was the first of two Salmonella outbreaks related to contaminated moringa powder in the past six months. The CDC said the two outbreaks are unrelated. (Soucheray, 3/18)

Getting your hair washed at the salon should be a relaxing experience, but in rare cases a trip to the hairdresser can result in an emergency neurology consult. Dizziness, weakness, numbness, or a sudden headache following a hair wash could be a sign of beauty parlor stroke syndrome -- a vertebral artery stroke resulting from compression of the vessels on the back of the head. (Robertson, 3/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: ‘How Low Can You Go?’ The Shifting Guidelines For Blood Pressure Control
The patient initially came to see Mark Supiano in 2017 because her family was concerned about her short-term memory loss. While taking her history and vital signs, Supiano, a geriatrician at the University of Utah, saw one disturbing signal: Her blood pressure was 148/86, above normal despite her taking two medications intended to lower it. “Clearly that was too high,” he said recently. (Span, 3/20)

Depression and suicidal ideation are stubbornly high among college students despite increased efforts by universities to combat the long-growing problem. While nearly all four-year institutions and the vast majority of community colleges offer mental health services, it hasn’t been enough to combat the academic stress, increased screen and social media time, rising isolation and other factors experts say can contribute to the difficulties students face. (Lonas Cochran, 3/18)

If you need help —

Women describe conditions that violate longstanding agency guidelines for how pregnant detainees should be treated. (Kitchener, Henriquez and Aleaziz, 3/20)

Gladys Knepper, at 93, had a morning routine that never wavered. She woke up at 6 and made her bed. She got a pot of coffee going and went outside to pick up her copy of The Dubuque Telegraph Herald. So when a neighbor in Dyersville, Iowa, noticed that Ms. Knepper’s newspaper was still on her doorstep on Mother’s Day in 2024, she knew something was wrong. Inside, she found Ms. Knepper sprawled on the floor. (Thomas, 3/19)

A newly discovered species of spider in the Ecuadorean Amazon mimics a pathogen, known as a zombie fungus, to protect itself. (Robles-Gil, 3/20)

Low-quality, mass-produced video content is alarming child development experts. Few guardrails are in place to stop it. (Tate Sullivan, 3/20)

She invented the game nearly 80 years ago to distract children who were suffering in the hospital during a polio outbreak. The goal was to reach a simple cottage at the end of the path — Home — which held a special significance for the sick children who missed their families. They loved it. (Miller and Muirhead, 3/13)

In recent years, a growing outcry has drawn long-overdue attention to a difficult truth: girls’ and women’s pain has too often been dismissed and undertreated in medicine. A 2022 study found that most TikTok content on intrauterine devices, or IUDs, is negative and centered on pain. While not always accurate, these posts reflect a broader truth supported by high-quality research, reputable journalism (like The New York Times podcast “The Retrievals”), and decades of shared clinical experience. But there is good news: This is changing, starting with IUDs. (Maryl Sackeim, 3/20)

Five years ago, President Trump delivered a historic victory for American patients when he signed the No Surprises Act (NSA) into law. The promise of this legislation was simple: Families would be protected from financial ruin caused by virtually unavoidable surprise medical bills. (James Gelfand and Patricia Kelmar, 3/20)

But don’t expect any Democrats to have an easier time selling it. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 3/20)

Until now, the revolutionary weight-loss drugs have been available largely to people with means. The entry of affordable generic versions will be a leveling force in healthcare, with global consequences. (Juliana Liu, 3/19)

When implemented thoughtfully, these tools can help create a safer home environment while preserving independence. (Leana S. Wen, 3/19)