KFF is a nonprofit organization researching U.S. health policy, covering insurance costs, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.
Joint Economic Committee Democrats say Trump's pharma stock reached up to $56.2 million by the end of 2025, from up to $1.7 million in 2024. Up to $39.1 million of it is in drugmakers that benefited from Medicare negotiation exemptions, and the White House denies any conflict.
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Medicare open enrollment runs through Dec. 7 for coverage that starts Jan. 1, with the Part D out-of-pocket cap rising to $2,400 from $2,100. A 3.6% Social Security raise worth about $75 a month starts in the same year, so enrollees can weigh the new cap against it.
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HCCI claims data shows price increases drove 90% of the nearly 19% rise in per-person employer health spending between 2019 and 2023. That moves the cost question to price per service, and HCCI's chief executive points employers to direct provider negotiation.
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KFF counts 13 state Medicaid programs covering GLP-1s for obesity under fee-for-service as of January 2026. Medicaid prescriptions and gross spending on the drugs have risen substantially since 2019, so public use is growing even where obesity coverage is thin.
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Medicaid stopped covering an estimated hundreds of thousands of lawfully present immigrants on Oct. 1, refugees and trafficking victims among them. It is a small early part of the 7.5 million coverage losses the CBO projects from Trump's 2025 law, and advocates expect the unpaid bills to reach emergency rooms.
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New Mexico approved a 19.8% average 2027 premium rise for employers with 50 or fewer workers, close to the 20.2% insurers sought. State law requires the regulator to approve any actuarially sound rate, so the review took little off a second straight year above the national median.
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Self-funded employer plans added 1.1 million members in the year to June as the ACA individual market shrank 17.2 percent, Mark Farrah Associates data show. That growth meets Marsh's projection of an 8.2 percent rise in 2027 benefit costs, the largest since 2003.
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Donald Trump's $5,000 'Trump Dividend' would cost about $1.2 trillion and needs Congress to pass it after a Republican sweep on Nov. 3. The $90 Medicare rebates due around Oct. 8 come from a fund that already holds the money, so only one of the two checks is paid for.
Perspective Coverage
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Trump is mailing $500 checks to more than 950,000 HealthCare.gov enrollees in 30 states who buy coverage without subsidies, each with a signed letter. Landing a month before the midterms, it turns a federal user-fee surplus into campaign-season messaging.
Perspective Coverage
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AP-KFF polling of over 2,000 rural voters finds about 8 in 10, including 68% of MAHA backers, say Trump's policies hurt or did nothing for local health. Two-thirds of those backers call a candidate's MAHA support extremely or very important to their vote, so the gap reaches November's ballot.
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Six Republican-led states will require provider proof of medical frailty when Medicaid work rules start in January, a year ahead of the federal schedule. The first cost lands on new applicants who cannot afford the doctor visit that proof requires.
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Bain Capital Ventures led a $25 million seed into an AI-agent benefits brokerage selling to employers with one to 500 workers. Its claim of 20% savings gets a first real test inside one enrolment season.
Perspective Coverage
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The company says a 20-person account earns a brokerage a fraction of an enterprise account for much the same work, and it is putting AI agents on that paperwork while keeping a licensed human advisor on every client.
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Brian Druker learned from colleagues that accounts using his name on Facebook and X were pitching ivermectin for cancer, and the remedies his OHSU colleagues offer are all aimed at the readers who see such posts.
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The Aug. 10 order also cuts the routine childhood list from 18 vaccines to 11 on the argument that the United States is out of step with Europe, and the pediatricians who have read it say no new safety or efficacy data came with it.
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More than half of small-group insurers expect to raise rates by 10% to 20% next year, and because employers cover about 80% of the premium, the increase competes with payroll inside the same small budget.
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KFF finds about a third of adults, and 42% of under-30s, taking health advice from general assistants. A Duke researcher says those models please users rather than probe them, which is the gap product teams can still price.
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The state with the least employer coverage in the country lost the most marketplace members and one of the smallest shares of them. That combination is what insurers elsewhere price against in 2027.
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The Bridge pilot prices by FDA label rather than medical need, routing sicker patients back to Part D copays. KFF's own math assumes three of four eligible people never enroll.
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The steepest annual decline since 1963 is being credited to most favored nation deals. The contracts are not public, the models are not live, and the index measures pharmacy receipts.
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