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Fact check: GOP falsely ties shutdown to Democrats' alleged drive to give all immigrants health care
“Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of health care benefits to illegal aliens.”
Vice President JD Vance in a Sept. 28, 2025, Fox News interview
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As the U.S. headed for a government shutdown, Republicans repeatedly accused Democrats of forcing the ...Read more

Why Democrats are casting the government shutdown as a health care showdown
Hours into the federal government shutdown, Julio Fuentes stood steps from the U.S. Capitol to deliver an urgent message about the Hispanic voting bloc that helped the GOP sweep into power last year.
Those votes, he cautioned, are at risk if Congress doesn’t pass a law to preserve lower premiums on Affordable Care Act marketplace plans for ...Read more

Horses making the rounds at Florida hospitals
MIAMI -- On a recent Friday morning, Pegasus slowly trots out of an elevator, surrounded by doctors and nurses. He’s ready to make his rounds and see the many sick children hospitalized at Holtz Children’s Hospital, located on Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Miami campus.
His owner, Alexandra Ramos, doesn’t need to say much to introduce the...Read more

When parents share mental health struggles, children feel it too
ATLANTA — Raising a child is never easy, and for many parents, the journey is made even harder by the quiet weight of mental health struggles. New research shows that mental health conditions often affect both partners — and can deeply influence their children’s well-being.
October is a significant month for mental health awareness, ...Read more

Big loopholes in hospital charity care programs mean patients still get stuck with the tab
Quinn Cochran-Zipp went to the emergency room three times with severe abdominal pain before doctors figured out she had early-stage cancer in the germ cells of her right ovary. After emergency surgery four years ago, the Greeley, Colorado, lab technician is cancer-free.
The two hospitals that treated Cochran-Zipp at the time determined that she...Read more

Where jobs are scarce, over 1 million people could dodge Trump's Medicaid work rules
Millions of Medicaid enrollees may have a way out of the new federal work requirement — if they live in a county with high unemployment.
By January 2027, President Donald Trump’s far-reaching domestic policy law will require many adult, nondisabled Medicaid enrollees in 42 states and Washington, D.C., to work or volunteer 80 hours a month ...Read more

Governor ends sunset clause for California's medical-aid-in-dying law
Thankfully, California’s medical-aid-in-dying law isn’t like old milk, to be tossed out when the expiration date passes.
Why the End of Life Option Act had an expiration date at all is thanks to a near-extinct political impulse: compromise. Opponents feared that vulnerable people would be pushed towards death, exterminated for being too ...Read more

CDC announces change in COVID-19 and chickenpox vaccine recommendations
The new acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced changes to the recommended vaccination schedule for adults against COVID-19 and for kids against chickenpox.
The changes were expected and were already previewed by recommendations made two weeks ago by the CDC’s powerful Advisory Committee on ...Read more

AI will soon have a say in approving or denying Medicare treatments
Taking a page from the private insurance industry’s playbook, the Trump administration will launch a program next year to find out how much money an artificial intelligence algorithm could save the federal government by denying care to Medicare patients.
The pilot program, designed to weed out wasteful, “low-value” services, amounts to a ...Read more

The White House says California uses a 'loophole' to give undocumented immigrants Medicaid. Experts disagree
Of all the finger-pointing and recriminations that come with the current federal government shutdown, one of the most striking elements is that the Trump administration blames it on Democratic support for granting taxpayer-funded health care coverage to undocumented immigrants. The White House has called out California specifically, saying the ...Read more

Shutdown risks leaving millions with costlier health insurance
Millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance face higher premiums in 2026. Just how much higher will depend on who blinks first in the government-shutdown fight.
Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies put in place by Democrats in 2021 made health insurance basically free for many people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. ...Read more

Doctors with troubled pasts are performing cosmetic surgeries tied to crippling pain and injury
Not long after California surgeon Andrew S. Hsu landed a job with a cosmetic surgery chain in Georgia, several of his patients suffered disfiguring injuries, and even his new employer had doubts about his competence, court records allege.
Hsu, a board-certified general surgeon, was one of six out-of-state doctors who joined the Atlanta Goals ...Read more

Health care's employment growth clouded by immigration crackdown, Medicaid cuts
The health care sector is a bright spot in the economy this year, driving nearly half of the nation’s employment gains, but economists and experts say immigration crackdowns and looming Medicaid cuts pose a threat to future job growth.
Employers added 487,000 jobs from January to August, according to the latest nonfarm payroll data from the ...Read more

All Strapped In and Nowhere to Go: The Surprising Upside of Stillness
Wearing a straitjacket has long been associated with asylums, stage escapes, and pop culture caricatures. Yet in recent years, some clinicians, therapists, and researchers have begun to examine the garment with more nuance. In therapeutic, experimental, and recreational contexts, carefully controlled use of straitjackets may offer surprising ...Read more

Environmental Nutrition: Here’s to jicama
Rough-skinned and oddly shaped, jicama is rather humble looking. A peek inside reveals a creamy white flesh with the crisp and juicy texture of a pear and the mild sweetness of a water chestnut.
The folklore
Also known as yam bean or Chinese potato, jicama remains a popular ingredient in global cuisine, known for its uniqueness and versatility...Read more

New study builds evidence of immune system's role in ALS
SAN DIEGO — A new study by researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, working with colleagues at Columbia University in New York, documents how the immune system functions differently in patients with amytrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, skewing the balance of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory ...Read more

Minnesota reports 13 more measles cases, raising 2025 total to 18
Thirteen measles cases have been identified over the past week in Minnesota, including a cluster of 10 cases in Dakota County and three separate cases among children exposed to the infectious disease during international travels.
The clusters raise the state’s measles case count to 18 for 2025, the fifth-highest total in at least 15 years, ...Read more

Black babies die suddenly, unexpectedly at 14 times the rate of white babies in Cook County, report says
Black babies died suddenly and unexpectedly in their sleep at a rate 14 times higher than white babies in Cook County between 2019 and 2023 — a startling disparity revealed in a report released Wednesday by county and health officials.
“I know what it is like to be a Black woman in America, so when I see data like that, it shakes me to my ...Read more

Republicans hammer immigration rhetoric on health care, though details are elusive
WASHINGTON — As the threat of a shutdown loomed this week, Republican leaders united behind a message: They weren’t going to cut a deal that would let Democrats provide health care to undocumented immigrants.
This talking point, which has been repeated by President Donald Trump down through rank-and-file members of Congress, largely skirts ...Read more

Shutdown halts some health services as political risks test parties' resolve
Threats of a federal government shutdown have gone from being an October surprise to a recurring theme. This time around, though, the stakes are higher.
Federal funding ran out at midnight on Oct. 1, after Congress failed to pass even a stopgap budget while negotiations continued.
Now the question is how long the deadlock will last, with ...Read more
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