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Health care & policy issues to watch in 2026
Christine Kao/STAT
As STAT's Helen Branswell wrote recently, 2025 was nothing short of "cuckoo bananas" when it came to public health and policy. Over the holiday break, STAT reporters covered the major questions on their beats as we march on into 2026:
- Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made chronic disease a central theme for the Trump administration. In 2026, his vision to Make America Healthy Again will get put to the test. STAT's chronic team wrote about the issues they're tracking, including GLP-1 pricing, the late-incoming federal dietary guidelines, and rural health projects.
- And then, of course, there's vaccines. In less than a year, Kennedy has bulldozed vaccine policy precedent and shaken up government personnel. Still, experts say the most concerning changes to vaccine policy could be ahead. Read more from STAT's Daniel Payne.
- The debate over paying for AI will intensify as more devices enter the field, STAT's Katie Palmer reports. The FDA has authorized more than 1,300 AI-enabled medical devices, but very few of those tools are actively paid for by insurers. Read more about the fight ahead.
And don't miss other 2026 previews on disability, policy, public health, vaccines, drugs, and the FDA.
health
Federal workers fight Trump admin over trans care coverage
Federal workers have filed a legal complaint over the loss of coverage for transgender health care that begins this month. As announced by the Office of Personnel Management last summer, government employees, postal workers, and their families — no matter their age — will no longer be able to receive insurance coverage for gender-affirming care including hormones or surgery.
The class action complaint was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. One of the five complainants is an HHS employee who needs a top surgery revision and to continue hormone therapy. The new policy requires them to pursue an exception in order to get that care covered. But since they need to change carriers due to other changes, they may not be eligible for the exception, the employee wrote in a brief testimonial included in the complaint.
first opinion
A weather forecast for public health?
That's the idea behind a new First Opinion essay by Deborah L. Birx, who served as the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force under President Trump from 2020 to 2021. Public health data should be just as available and intuitive as a local weather forecast, Birx argues. She believes that state and local surveillance measures must be strengthened, but the data must also be presented in a way that communities can use.
"If we fail to act, we will remain trapped in a cycle where Washington models problems from afar, while communities bear the costs," she writes. Read more.
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