Gov. Kay Ivey has signed into law a bill to allow the Alabama Farmers Federation to offer a health care plan for its members that will not be subject to the same laws and regulations as health insurance programs. The legislation had strong bipartisan support, passing the House 98-1 and the Senate 30-2. Supporters say the plan would provide an affordable alternative for farmers and self-employed people who are ALFA members and who struggle to pay for health insurance.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont has lost over $150 million in the past four years. If it fails, the state's entire healthcare apparatus could fall apart, officials say.
Investors say United HealthCare, the third largest public healthcare company in the world by market value, shifted away from its much maligned practice of denying treatment and claims, without publicly disclosing the impact on company profits.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says President Trump's new nominee for surgeon general turned away from modern medicine because 'she was not curing patients.' Casey Means, an ally of Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' movement, has come under scrutiny since Trump made her the surgeon general pick, as she never finished her residency and does not have an active medical license. Kennedy defended Means during the interview on Fox News.
The FDA is rolling out an aggressive plan to make generative AI a linchpin in its decision-making, part of a bid to get faster and leaner in evaluating drugs, foods, medical devices and diagnostic tests. The plan raises urgent questions about what's being done to secure the vast amount of proprietary company data that's part of the process and whether sufficient guardrails are in place.
President Donald Trump's push to cut billions of dollars in government contracts is rattling the niche community of scientists who collect, study and share human brains. Two of the country's brain banks, which have worked with the government to store and distribute specimens to researchers studying diseases like Parkinson's and ALS for more than a decade, told POLITICO they had temporarily stopped taking new donations for fear the administration would not renew their contracts.