Delhi NCR has 39 hospitals with robotic systems, while 11 hospitals have more than one such system, making the region the country's leading hub for robotic-system installations, according to data presented at the conference.
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KFF Health News chief rural correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble discussed the findings of a KFF-Associated Press poll about rural support for the Make America Healthy Again movement on NPR’s Morning Edition on Sept. 30.
Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed a new GLP-1 weight loss drug on CBS News’ CBS Mornings and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s comments at a MAHA summit this week on CBS News 24/7’s Mornings, both on Sept. 30.
Gounder also discussed how Anthropic’s Claude agents might help develop new gene-editing technology on CBS News 24/7’s The Daily Report on Sept. 24.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Noida-based Yatharth Hospital and Trauma Care Services operates a network of super-speciality hospitals in India, providing comprehensive healthcare services, diagnostics, and advanced medical procedures across multiple specialities.
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Democratic congressional members and candidates are already planning to use any midterm election gains to expand health coverage, including boosting Affordable Care Act subsidies, reversing Medicaid cuts, and lowering the Medicare eligibility age.
But Democratic strongholds across the country — including Oregon, California, New York, and Washington — have more ambitious goals: single-payer, universal healthcare systems.
No state is closer to that goal than Oregon. A panel created by the state legislature in 2023 is slated to send lawmakers its proposal for a universal health plan by Dec. 1. The nine-person Universal Health Plan Governance Board seeks to establish, starting in 2032, medical, vision, dental, and mental health benefits for every state resident from cradle to grave — with no premiums, deductibles, or copayments. Lawmakers could vote on a plan during the 2027 legislative session or refer it to voters as a ballot measure in 2028.
If approved, the state would be the first in the U.S. to implement what’s called a single-payer health coverage system. It could serve as a model for other states — and potentially the nation.
States have often served as laboratories to test health policies later implemented nationally. The Affordable Care Act was modeled after Massachusetts’ attempt to achieve universal health insurance coverage, once single-payer efforts there stalled. And Canada’s universal healthcare system began with a provincial plan in Saskatchewan.
“In the short to medium term, there is no chance that ‘Medicare for All’ can be passed at the national level,” said Jonathan Oberlander, a University of North Carolina health policy professor. “That’s where the states come in. A state like Oregon provides a more hospitable political environment and a more realistic path to single-payer reform.”
But advocates of the plan expect a significant fight from healthcare behemoths, including large hospital systems, seeking to sour public opinion on making such widespread changes. Nine of the Fortune 500 companies are health insurers. The industry’s deep pockets have helped derail myriad universal healthcare efforts at the federal and state levels.
In 2011, the Vermont Legislature voted to implement a universal healthcare plan but, three years later, Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, who had campaigned on the promise of single-payer, pulled the plug, citing “potential economic disruption.”
States that took the issue directly to voters have fared no better. Ballot measures in Colorado in 2016, Oregon in 2002, and California in 1994 all failed by large margins.
“The aspirations of progressive reformers usually run smack into sobering political realities,” Oberlander said. “Translating a slogan into a legislative and political reality is a daunting task.”
Valdez Bravo, president of Health Care for All Oregon, speaks at the nonprofit’s annual garden party in Portland on Sept. 12. The state will soon consider a plan for universal health coverage that the state legislature ordered in 2023. (Christena Dowsett for KFF Health News)
Redirected Healthcare Dollars
Oregon’s proposal seeks to maintain the current level of spending on healthcare by government, business, and consumers with new corporate and personal taxes to replace insurance premiums and other out-of-pocket costs. Those would be combined with federal and state spending to create a single fund from which all hospitals, doctors, and other practitioners would be paid.
Board members said savings from cutting red tape, reducing fraud, and negotiating drug costs should allow the state to provide better benefits to more people.
In examples prepared for consumer focus groups, the board estimated that a 30-year-old making $55,000 and purchasing a benchmark silver-level plan through the Affordable Care Act now pays $5,478 a year for insurance premiums in Oregon, but instead could pay $2,331 in taxes under the proposed plan.
Someone making $55,000 a year with coverage through their employer now pays $3,063 in premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Under the draft plan, that person could pay nothing for health services and could see any doctor in the state.
Currently, many employers pay much of the health insurance costs for their workers. The plan seeks to maintain those contributions by establishing a corporate payroll tax for companies whose payrolls exceed $500,000. Their employees could receive a partial tax credit for the taxes their employers pay. As a result, 31% to 60% of Oregonians wouldn’t pay anything for health benefits.
More affluent people, however, could end up paying more than they do now. The exact numbers would depend on how lawmakers set tax rates and payment thresholds.
“What we are proposing is something very different,” said Miriam McDonell, executive director of the Oregon board. “Everyone contributes based on the amount that they are able to contribute and not based on utilization.”
A work group created by the state legislature in 2023 is slated to send lawmakers its proposal for a universal health plan by Dec. 1. Lawmakers could vote on the plan as soon as the next legislative session or refer it to a ballot measure in 2028. The nonprofit Health Care for All Oregon hosted a garden party on Sept. 12 ahead of the reveal. (Christena Dowsett for KFF Health News)
Backers of the universal healthcare coverage plan will try to convince hospitals and health systems that they would benefit from reducing red tape and eliminating unpaid bills. (Christena Dowsett for KFF Health News)
Messaging Challenge Lies Ahead
The plan’s backers will try to convince hospitals and health systems that they would benefit from reducing red tape and eliminating unpaid bills. Currently, hospitals hire scores of workers to bill dozens of public and private health plans, each with its own coverage and billing rules. A single plan covering everyone in the state could streamline the process, saving billions.
Rural hospitals could gain financial stability. They now often struggle to stay afloat because they typically have higher rates of patients who are uninsured or on Medicaid, with its often low reimbursement rates.
Hospitals aren’t so sure.
“The universal health plan proposal preserves much of the broken, fragmented status quo and adds new taxes and complexity that Oregonians can’t afford,” said Becky Hultberg, president and CEO of the Hospital Association of Oregon. “With federal policy changes looming, we are entering a period of tremendous upheaval. This proposal could destabilize a system that is already struggling.”
Under the proposal, doctors and other practitioners would be paid somewhere between what Medicare pays on the low end and what private insurance pays on the high end. Although total payments to doctors would remain unchanged, rates would be negotiated with physician groups to shift more money into primary care and less into specialty services.
But it is unclear whether doctors would agree that more patient time, fewer administrative hurdles, and no more unpaid bills would be worth a payment structure that could cause specialists to lose out.
Rebecca Schoon, an associate professor at Pacific University who attended last month’s Health Care for All Oregon garden party, says that communicating what universal healthcare is will be one of the biggest challenges ahead for Oregon’s proposed plan. (Christena Dowsett for KFF Health News)
“There’s always winners and losers in designing something like this, and so how to distribute those is the hardest part,” said Rebecca Schoon, an associate health policy professor at Pacific University who is slated to join the Oregon board in January. “But the second-hardest part is, I think, messaging this.”
Courtni Dresser, vice president of government relations for the Oregon Medical Association, said her physicians group shares many of the board’s goals in improving access to care and reducing administrative burdens. But the group has yet to declare its support or opposition to the effort.
Health insurers haven’t formally weighed in on Oregon’s proposal either, but a single-payer system would, in essence, close off Oregon to any private healthcare plans.
“We expect insurance companies to put every ounce of money they can against this idea because our system is broken and they profit from it,” said Collin Stackhouse, communications coordinator for Health Care for All Oregon, a consumer group advocating for universal healthcare.
Wendell Potter, a former insurance company executive who now works to expose industry influence, said he expects health plans to hammer the Oregon proposal with claims of high taxes, loss of choice, and the specter of “socialized medicine.”
“Most people go year to year without testing the limits of their health insurance policy,” Potter said. “And so, they’re easily scared into thinking that something valuable will be taken away from them, and that they will have something that’s inferior in its place.”
Health insurers argue their health plans help shield consumers from the full impact of rising healthcare costs.
“Americans consistently report strong satisfaction with their health coverage, including more than 180 million covered through work and 36 million who choose Medicare Advantage,” said Chris Bond, a spokesperson for the health insurance trade group AHIP. “Policy solutions are needed to rein in the ever-higher prices charged by hospitals and drugmakers and make care more affordable for everyone.”
Volunteers converse at the Sept. 12 garden party in Portland. Oregon’s legislature created a work group in 2023 to draw up a plan to create universal healthcare in the state. The proposal is due Dec. 1. (Christena Dowsett for KFF Health News)
Federal Approval Needed
It’s unclear whether Oregon could secure federal approval to redirect Medicare and Medicaid dollars into its universal plan. Backers of the proposal do not expect the Trump administration to be receptive but say it will be years before approval is needed and hope the 2028 presidential election ushers in a more supportive administration. If federal waivers are not secured, Oregon could proceed in stages, starting with the non-Medicare population.
In California, Democratic candidates for governor are not debating whether to implement single-payer but how. New York lawmakers are debating a single-payer bill called the New York Health Act. And in Washington, state legislators have created a commission to design a universal healthcare plan.
The Oregon board has had regular contact with teams working on single-payer proposals in California and Washington, sharing approaches and looking for ways to collaborate, McDonell said.
Richard Bruno, an Oregon family physician and a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, said he could envision the other West Coast states joining Oregon in implementing single-payer, much as California, Washington, and Hawaii have in public health efforts to counter changes in federal vaccine recommendations.
“If our four states could do it,” he said, “that would be the momentum we would need to get it nationally.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
The government will constitute a four-member committee headed by the Health Department Principal Secretary to prepare a draft bill for consideration by the state Assembly, Health Minister K Muraleedharan said on Thursday.
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The KFF Health News Minute is available every Thursday via direct download or the RSS feed.
Oct. 1
Arielle Zionts [arr-ee-ELL ZY-ence] reads the week’s news: If you’re an older patient taking a long list of medications, consider reviewing them with a primary care provider to make sure they’re helping more than hurting. Plus, states are experimenting with Medicaid meal deliveries to cut costs and improve patients’ health.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads the week’s news: Many small businesses say they can no longer afford to offer their staff health insurance. Plus, when friends and neighbors act as informal caregivers, they’re unlikely to receive protection for time spent away from work.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: The high cost of fertility treatment is making some Americans look abroad for help getting pregnant. Plus, a nonprofit in Austin, Texas, is trying to keep its city’s music scenes going by helping artists pay for health insurance.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads the week’s news: Laser cataract surgery, which can be pricier, may not be worth the extra cost. Plus, the federal government is pulling funding for test strips that can help users detect fentanyl in drugs in favor of other public health approaches.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: Violence against hospital workers fuels calls for mandatory staffing rules. Plus, tips on how to find a clinical trial.
Katheryn Houghton [CATH-er-in HOW-tun] reads the week’s news: A wristband with the words “I Gave Birth” could be a lifesaving tool for new moms, and many homeless people will have to prove they’re working to stay on Medicaid.
Arielle Zionts [arr-ee-ELL ZY-ence] reads the week’s news: Pediatricians try to persuade more parents to vaccinate their kids amid measles outbreaks. Plus, how hospital monopolies drive up costs for patients and insurers.
Rachel Spears reads the week’s news: Many people with disabilities fear that a new Justice Department legal opinion could roll back protections that have given them access to in-home care. Plus, some cities are using 911 to respond to mental health distress calls with mobile crisis teams instead of police.
Katheryn Houghton [CATH-er-in HOW-tun] reads the week’s news: Some older adults are seeking roommates to help them age in place. Plus, doctors say they shouldn’t be the ones determining if someone is too sick to comply with Medicaid’s new work rules.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads this week’s news: Health insurance companies promised to make it easier to get doctor-ordered care, but patients are still waiting. Plus, a common surgery might not be the best way to solve knee pain.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads this week’s news: Coverage disruptions can have fatal consequences when switching health plans. Plus, more states are shaming employers that use your tax dollars to cover health costs for their low-income workers.
Sam Whitehead reads the week’s news: Some health plans are pocketing their enrollees’ drug discounts, while many Affordable Care Act insurers want to raise rates by double digits next year.
Rachel Spears reads the week’s news: When babies receiving infant formula allegedly get sick or die, what happens next is largely up to the companies that make it. Plus, abortions continue to rise four years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads the week’s news: More Americans than ever are surviving cancer and face lingering mental health issues. Plus, tips to get your health insurance company to pay for a GLP-1 drug.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: The U.S. is getting its first new sunscreen ingredient in decades. Plus, at-home cancer tests have their limits.
Katheryn Houghton [CATH-er-in HOW-tun] reads the week’s news: New rules that require millions of Americans to work to access Medicaid are stricter than many expected. Plus, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act protects many people’s jobs — but there’s a big catch.
Sam Whitehead reads the week’s news: More Americans are getting access to physician-assisted suicide as states legalize the practice. Plus, hundreds of people allege medical neglect in ICE detention centers.
Arielle Zionts [arr-ee-ELL ZY-ence] reads the week’s news: For some older adults, the risks of certain preventive screenings might outweigh the rewards. Plus, cost spikes for Obamacare plans have consumers seeking cheaper health coverage, which is often less comprehensive.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads this week’s news: Suicide prevention experts argue that improving Americans’ financial well-being could save lives. Plus, the Trump administration proposes looser artificial intelligence safeguards to speed innovation in healthcare.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Addressing the World Congress of Gastroenterology (WCOG 2026) here, Nadda termed screening for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) an important part of preventive healthcare.
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Hundreds of thousands of immigrants with legal status are at risk of losing government health coverage starting Oct. 1, state data shows, signaling that the impact of Medicaid changes in President Donald Trump’s signature legislation from 2025 may be greater than anticipated.
Many lawfully present immigrants will be among the first people to lose Medicaid coverage under congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to cut spending by more than $900 billion through 2034 for the state-federal health program for people with low incomes or disabilities. The law will strip many more immigrants of their Affordable Care Act plan subsidies and Medicare coverage next year.
Those losing their health benefits who were previously eligible include refugees of war, asylees who fled persecution, victims of sex trafficking, and interpreters who risked their lives assisting U.S. service members in Afghanistan — all of whom are in the country with the federal government’s permission. The law does not affect coverage for a few groups, including those who hold green cards.
The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, estimated the law’s changes eliminating Medicaid eligibility for many noncitizen adults with legal status would lead to about 100,000 more immigrants being uninsured by 2034.
KFF Health News asked several states how many Medicaid enrollees they had identified as being at risk of losing coverage under the provision. More than 281,000 immigrants from nine states and the District of Columbia are expected to lose Medicaid in October.
While some may be able to obtain coverage elsewhere, the state numbers suggest hundreds of thousands of immigrants nationally are at imminent risk of becoming uninsured.
The CBO declined to comment.
Florida alone identified nearly 177,000 immigrants who would no longer qualify for the state’s Medicaid program starting in October, said Anna Holaday, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Children and Families. The agency verified the enrollees’ immigration status through government databases and sent notices to people to give them an opportunity to provide more information proving they remain eligible, Holaday said.
Arizona predicts nearly 28,000 could lose eligibility. New Jersey expects 15,000 to 25,000 of its noncitizen residents to lose their Medicaid coverage. In North Carolina, it’s about 29,000, and in Washington state it’s 11,000. Final numbers from states on how many Medicaid enrollees have been terminated from the program won’t be available until later this fall.
Lawmakers rely on the CBO to understand the budgetary and economic impacts of proposed legislation. Yet the federal agency did not publish estimates on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s impact on noncitizens enrolled in Medicaid until a month after Congress passed the bill and Trump signed it into law.
Much of the attention around Medicaid changes in the law has centered on implementation of work requirements as a new condition of eligibility for many enrollees starting in January. The CBO estimates the requirements will increase the number of uninsured Americans by about 5 million by 2034.
Without health coverage, immigrants are likely to lose access to doctors, prescription drugs, and most other medical services. They still could qualify for coverage of emergency care under a separate program known as Emergency Medicaid.
“I came here to live a better life,” said Ahin, a refugee who left war-torn Syria for Turkey in 2011 and came to the U.S. in October 2024. She spoke with KFF Health News on the condition that she be identified by only her first name, out of concern for her privacy and security.
Soon after arriving in the U.S., she developed severe abdominal pain that required intestinal surgery. Those costs, along with ongoing visits to specialists, were covered by Medicaid.
“I’m really worried about this,” she said. “It’s truly a terrible situation.”
Ahin, 25, said she doesn’t know what she will do if she needs to go to the hospital — she wouldn’t be able to pay the bill. She lives in a small apartment in New Jersey with her mother. Medicaid has also been vital to her mother, who has asthma.
Health Benefits Wane for Immigrants
The federal government required states to notify immigrants who will soon lose coverage, but immigrant rights advocates say some states did not begin sending letters until September. That’s given enrollees little time to react, including to respond if the state was mistakenly ending their coverage.
Cutting off Medicaid coverage is just the first move to drop government health benefits provided to many lawfully present immigrants. Under a change starting in January, the CBO estimates, about 1 million will lose eligibility for government subsidies to buy individual health coverage on Affordable Care Act marketplaces by 2034. And they will also lose access to Medicare, a change expected to affect about 100,000 immigrants, the agency forecasts.
Trump has argued that taxpayer-funded programs should be reserved for American citizens. As Congress debated the legislation in May 2025, the White House put out a news release with the misleading claim that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would remove Medicaid coverage for people who are in the country without authorization.
Under long-standing law, people who are in the country without authorization do not qualify for the general Medicaid program that is funded by state and federal dollars.
The health coverage cuts are part of a broader Trump strategy to send a message that immigrants are not welcome in the United States, said Ben D’Avanzo, senior strategist for federal advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center. The Trump administration has also moved to kick people with legal status off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and tried to do the same with the children’s program Head Start until a federal judge intervened.
In addition to green card holders, people under age 19 and immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, or certain Pacific Island countries will not see their Medicaid coverage affected by the law.
A Few States Try To Fill in the Gaps
Some states are staving off the coverage loss using their own money. California expects about 148,000 immigrants to lose Medicaid coverage. But the state is spending $365 million for a separate program to keep them covered until July 2027, according to Tony Cava, a spokesperson for the California Department of Health Care Services.
New York and Pennsylvania also have state-funded health coverage for many of the immigrants who are affected.
Carlos Alarcón, health and public benefits policy manager with the California Immigrant Policy Center, an advocacy group, said taking away health coverage for immigrants will affect the health of the state as a whole. The fewer people who have access to healthcare, the easier it will be for contagious diseases to spread, as happened during the covid pandemic, he said.
Alarcón said he hopes the state-funded coverage will be extended under California’s next governor. Polling released in September showed Democrat Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden, leading Republican Steve Hilton in the gubernatorial race. Becerra has vowed to issue an executive order to maintain health coverage for every Californian affected by federal cuts.
California’s next governor will face tough decisions on a highly controversial piece of healthcare policy: what to do about health coverage for the more than 1.4 million low-income residents without legal status. Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton present starkly different choices as public opinion wavers.
“I believe there’s folks in the legislature that will really want to fight to make sure that we restore things as much as we can,” Alarcón said.
Refugee assistance groups say they have been trying to educate people in their communities and direct them to health clinics that are government-funded or free.
“We’ve just been scrambling trying to find free medical care,” said Julianna Larsen, co-founder of the Arizona Refugee Center. “To not be a welcoming place is the most un-American thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Andrea Mendez Perez, director at Interfaith-RISE, a refugee resettlement organization in southern New Jersey, said the Trump administration has elongated the process for people to get green cards and is now taking away coverage from those without them. Before 2025, it typically took about six months to qualify for a green card, documentation that allows a foreign national to live and work permanently in the United States, she said. Today, it’s well over a year.
For many of these immigrants on Medicaid, losing their ability to get their prescribed medications “is a life-or-death situation,” Mendez Perez said.
Ahin, the Syrian refugee, applied for permanent residency soon after arriving in the U.S. two years ago. Mendez Perez said she should have her green card by now, which would have spared her from being dropped under the GOP law. “She is stuck in the middle and has no control.”
Colleen McCauley, policy and advocacy director at the Camden Coalition, a nonprofit that helps connect people to healthcare in southern New Jersey, said the loss of coverage is devastating.
“None of them did anything wrong,” McCauley said, “and they are losing coverage.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
IHH Healthcare aims to raise its stake in Fortis Healthcare to 51 percent within three to five years. The company intends to increase Fortis' total capacity to around 10,000 beds by 2031. This decision follows a Supreme Court ruling concerning a forensic audit of Fortis. IHH confirmed it was not involved in ongoing disputes between Fortis and prior management.
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The Delhi High Court has annulled an order from FSSAI regarding Red Bull India's product labeling. Justice Amit Mahajan ruled in favor of the company on the grounds of natural justice. The court has allowed FSSAI to issue a fresh show-cause notice to Red Bull India. This decision enables the company to present its case effectively. FSSAI can pass a new order after following proper legal processes.
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