Kaiser Health News (website)

https://khn.org/

• In RFK Jr.’s Upside-Down World of Vaccines, Panel Votes To End Hepatitis B Shot at Birth (2025/12/05 20:31)

  A session of a vaccine panel dominated by skeptics was chaotically at odds with past practices of the CDC, which HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described as a “cesspool of corruption.” His crew voted to end a 34-year recommendation to vaccinate newborns against hepatitis B.
• Health Savings Accounts, Backed by GOP, Cover Fancy Saunas but Not Insurance Premiums (2025/12/05 10:00)

  Health savings accounts can be used to cover medical expenses, tax-free. But while wealthier Americans are using them to pay for gym equipment, cedar ice baths, and hemlock saunas, poorer Americans can’t use them to pay their skyrocketing health insurance premiums.
• Listen: Nation’s Capital Cuts Traffic Deaths as Rates Rise Across US (2025/12/03 10:00)

  National traffic deaths are higher than they were a decade ago, despite safety initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels. But recently that trajectory has changed in Washington, D.C., itself.
• Trump Wants Americans To Make More Babies. Critics Say His Policies Won’t Help Raise Them. (2025/12/03 10:00)

  The administration’s embrace of the pronatalist movement often doesn’t include support for programs traditionally associated with the health and well-being of women, children, and families.
• Listen to the Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’ (2025/12/02 15:00)

  The "KFF Health News Minute” brings original health care and health policy reporting from our newsroom to the airwaves each week.
• RFK Jr. Wants To Delay the Hepatitis B Vaccine. Here’s What Parents Need To Know. (2025/12/02 10:00)

  A CDC panel is reconsidering the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. Renewed doubt could lead to fewer kids getting vaccinated, leaving them vulnerable to an incurable, preventable virus that can be acquired by indirect contact with infected blood.
• Feds Promised ‘Radical Transparency’ but Are Withholding Rural Health Fund Applications (2025/12/02 10:00)

  Proposals from states that have shared their applications to a new $50 billion rural health program include using drones to deliver medication, installing refrigerators to expand access to healthy produce, and bringing telehealth to libraries, day cares, and senior centers.
• They Need a Ventilator To Stay Alive. Getting One Can Be a Nightmare. (2025/12/02 10:00)

  Few nursing homes are set up to care for people needing help breathing with a ventilator because of ALS or other infirmities. Insurers often resist paying for ventilators at home, and innovative programs are now endangered by Medicaid cuts.