WashU Medicine researchers found that stopping GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide and tirzepatide even temporarily elevates the risk of heart attack, stroke and death compared to staying on the medication continuously.
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. The arrest warrant charging Moore with murder uses language that echoes the law, saying police determined Moore had been pregnant beyond six weeks 'based on the medical staff's knowledge that the baby had a beating heart and was struggling to breathe.'
Few issues illustrate the structural challenges facing American healthcare more clearly than the growing complexity of insurance approval processes. At its core, health insurance is meant to ensure that patients can obtain recommended treatment without unnecessary barriers. Yet for many Americans today, the path from a physician’s recommendation to receiving covered care has become increasingly difficult to navigate, slowed by administrative procedures that were designed to manage costs but now often complicate the delivery of care.
Nearly 90% of the land in the United States is rural and about one in five people, or some 60 million, live throughout it according to the U.S. Census. Data also show rural residents are older, have worse health outcomes and less healthcare access than their urban counterparts. There are about 2,000 rural hospitals available to intervene in their health emergencies and over 40% operate at a loss. Risk of closure looms, especially for hospitals in the southern half of the U.S. Rural areas also have a high reliance on Medicaid, relative to the size of their populations. Medicaid is the public program that provides insurance to more than 70 million poor children, pregnant women, seniors and people with disabilities. The July 2025 budget reconciliation bill included nearly $1 trillion in federal Medicaid cuts that, along with other measures, are projected to leave about 10 million people uninsured by 2034, according to estimates from the non-partisan CBO.
The number of hospitalizations Massachusetts has seen for septicemia has more than tripled since 2010, to more than 42,000 people in the year ending September 2025, preliminary state data show. Since at least 2019, it has been the third-leading cause of hospitalizations in Massachusetts. Some of the uptick may be better recognition and diagnosing. But experts, insurers, and even some providers point to another explanation that is less about the actual medical threat and more a statement on modern health care: the increasingly sophisticated battle between hospitals and insurers over billing, each side using the power of artificial intelligence and other tech tools to protect their businesses. Insurers say hospitals are billing for the most expensive conditions and highest severity that patients could conceivably have with their symptoms. Hospitals say they have to optimize billing to combat higher rates of denials from insurers. Regardless, experts say the practice is adding to health care costs while providing very little if any benefit to patients. On sepsis alone, the practice could add thousands of dollars to each bill hospitals submit. Billing practices are a core contributor to both rising costs and wasteful spending in the healthcare sector, Berwick said. Insurers have cited more intense billing as one driver of spending, which contributes to ever escalating health insurance premiums that households, employers and even many towns are struggling to pay. Insurers and some experts say hospitals are using tools and vendors to comb through medical records, submitting billing codes that make the patient look as sick as possible. And, the sicker the patient, the higher the payment.
Bryn Mawr Hospital announced this week it has received $1 million from an anonymous donor to help its nurses pay off student loans — the fourth hospital in the nonprofit Main Line Health system to receive such a donation in the last year. The donations began in summer 2025, when a longtime Lankenau Medical Center patient anonymously contributed $1 million toward student loan payments for nurses at the Wynnewood hospital. Then, another donor read an Inquirer story about the contribution and sent $1 million to nurses at Paoli Hospital. Late last year, the original Lankenau donor was so moved by thank-you letters from nurses that they decided to contribute another $1 million to the hospital. Early this year, an anonymous donor sent $260,000 toward nurses' student loan costs at Riddle Hospital in Media. Most recently, the nurses at Bryn Mawr hospital received yet another $1 million donation.