National 211 hotline calls for food assistance quadrupled in a matter of days, a magnitude typically seen during disasters

Between January and mid-October 2025, calls to local 211 helplines from people seeking food pantries in their community held steady at nearly 1,000 calls per day. But as the government…

Conservatives notch 2 victories in their fight to deny Planned Parenthood federal funding through Medicaid

Conservatives have won two important battles in their decades-long campaign against Planned Parenthood, a network of affiliated clinics that are the largest provider of reproductive health services in the U.S.…

GOP lawmakers commit to big spending cuts, putting Medicaid under a spotlight – but trimming the low-income health insurance program would be hard

Efforts by Republicans in Congress to make steep spending cuts have stirred widespread concerns that the federal government may trim expenditures on Medicaid even though President Donald Trump has previously…

Why it’s hard for the US to cut or even control Medicare spending

President Joe Biden’s 2024 proposed budget includes plans to shore up the finances of Medicare, the federal health insurance program that covers Americans who are 65 and up and some…