Clipboard with a sheet of paper with "Medicaid" written at the top on a desk with stethoscope and other medical equip ment.
Health Costs, Health Insurance, Medicaid, Politics

Work Requirements for Medicaid Could Be Returning as Republicans Take Back the Power

During the first Trump Administration, states were encouraged to submit waiver requests to implement Medicaid work requirements, a decision which signaled the weaponization of the Section 1115 authority as a means of achieving a long-standing Republican policy goal. Ultimately, thirteen such waivers were approved. Federal lawsuits soon followed and stories about how these requirements could impact rural communities began to emerge. 

Map of the U.S. showing the states swing states.
Abortion, Health Policy, Law, Politics, Women's Health

Will abortion swing the first post-Roe presidential election?

Throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back.

Abortion, Health Policy, Politics, Women's Health

Inside Project 2025: Former Trump Official Outlines Hard Right Turn Against Abortion

Under Severino’s vision for HHS, federal approval of one commonly used abortion drug, mifepristone, could be revisited and potentially withdrawn.

Health agencies would promote “fertility awareness” as an “unsurpassed” method of contraception.

Medicaid, the public health insurance program that covers more than 75 million low-income and disabled people, could be converted into block grants that

Democrats say would result in far lower funding and enrollment.

HHS itself would be known as the Department of Life, underscoring a new focus on opposing abortion.

Picture of an intrauterine device used for contraception
Abortion, Contraception, Politics, Women's Health

Birth Control Limits to Follow Abortion Bans?

Many advocates on reproductive health issues think U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade will further fuel some conservatives’ efforts to limit access to birth control. Although Alito specifically said in the draft that the ruling would not pertain to other rights courts also grounded in privacy, activists worry opponents will marshal his argument on privacy to attack birth control or gay marriage, for example.