Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Feds Freeze $1 Billion In Medicaid Payments To California And Minnesota
The Trump administration has frozen more than $867 million in California Medicaid dollars over suspected fraud, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday. Kennedy, alongside Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz, did not provide specific examples or evidence of fraud when they announced the move but said the administration paused reimbursements because of questionable spending. The administration also froze more than $200 million of Medicaid funds in Minnesota, another Democratic-led state that has become a regular target of Trump funding freezes. (DiNatale, 7/21)
More Medicaid updates
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is seeking to implement a major tax policy from last years sweeping spending law. CMS proposed Tuesday a new regulation paring back provider taxes, which states apply to hospitals, Medicaid managed-care companies and others to help finance the state share of Medicaid spending. Every state except Alaska levies such taxes, along with Washington, D.C. (Early, 7/21)
Cody Coughenour landed in jail at least half a dozen times by the time he was 47 years old. First, it was crimes related to his alcohol addiction. Then, when he was 26 years old, his mother died of a meth-induced heart attack. The overwhelming grief led him to the same methamphetamines that killed his mother. "What people are running away from, that's what they're going to run into," he said. (Wernau, 7/22)
In SNAP developments
More than 4 million people nationwide were dropped from the federal food assistance program known as SNAP from July 2025 through March, according to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a nonpartisan think tank. (Martinez, 7/21)
Illinois will get an extra year, until October 2028, before it must begin sharing the cost of food assistance benefits with the federal government, after the states own payment error rate climbed high enough to qualify for a delay built into a sweeping federal law. (Olander, 7/21)
On Medicare for kids
Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) on Tuesday unveiled a proposal for all American children to receive Medicare, a program hes dubbed MediKids, saying Democrats must bring new ideas to move the conversation on healthcare forward. (Choi, 7/21)
On health and affordability
An increasing number of adults are slogging through jobs they dont like solely because they dont want to lose their health insurance. This phenomenon known as job lock has existed in the U.S. workforce for decades. The worry of losing health benefits inhibits the ability for people, especially those with more health problems or complex conditions, to switch jobs or careers. Economists have also said job lock prevents people from starting their own businesses. (Herman, 7/22)
One in three people cannot afford to eat a healthy diet, a new report has found, prompting calls for urgent action on food affordability. There are 2.69 billion people unable to afford a diverse diet that meets their energy and nutrient needs, and it will take immense amounts of work to achieve the global target of zero hunger by 2030, the annual report from five UN agencies warned. (Lay, 7/21)
President Donald Trump says Trump Accounts could hoist children out of poverty and give more Americans the chance to benefit from investments in the stock market. But some parents say theyre still waiting for the money to arrive. (Balingit, 7/22)
