Health policy experts warn that any cuts to Medicaid are likely to cause more trouble for rural hospitals than urban ones. That's due in part because rural residents are more likely to be enrolled in Medicaid.
Thousands of employees returned to the FDA's headquarters Monday to find overflowing parking lots, long security lines and makeshift office spaces without chairs and other basic supplies. The FDA is the latest agency scrambling to meet the Trump administration's return-to-office mandate, part of a flurry of actions — including firings and buyouts — intended to radically shrink the federal workforce. Monday was the first day that all rank-and-file FDA staffers were required to report to offices, including the agency's 130-acre campus just outside Washington.
HHS has removed a former surgeon general's warning declaring gun violence a public health crisis to comply with the president's executive order to protect Second Amendment rights, according to a White House official. Giffords, the gun violence prevention group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, announced on Monday that former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's advisory recognizing gun violence as a public health crisis was wiped from HHS' website.
A Mercer County hospital is preparing to reopen Tuesday, two months after closing in bankruptcy and being acquired by a California company. Sharon Regional Medical Center has been given the green light to reopen, pending the transfer of the hospital license to new owners, Tenor Health Foundation Sharon LLC, which has corporate offices in Pasadena. The hospital closed Jan. 6 as part of the financial restructuring of corporate parent Steward Health System.
Since the start of the year, Medical Properties Trust shares have jumped more than 50%. That's despite the bankruptcy filing in early January of yet another of its biggest tenants, looming deep cuts to Medicaid funding that are poised to devastate hospitals that predominantly treat elderly and lower-income patients, the saber-rattling rhetoric against MPT of politicians, sell or hold recommendations from 11 out of 12 of the equity analysts, and a credit rating deep in junk territory that ratings agencies have downgraded twice over the past year.
In 2024, ThedaCare merged with Froedert Health. In February 2025, that newly-formed healthcare system closed the delivery unit there. The closest birthing center to Waupaca is now more than 30 miles to the northwest in Stevens Point. But many pregnant women will have to go even farther — to the Fox Valley to the east — to reach a hospital that accepts their insurance.