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With major federal Medicaid cuts signed into law, states will now face painful decisions about how to preserve health care access and affordability. The Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is projected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and cause nearly 16 million people to lose insurance coverage. But states can mitigate the Trump administration’s efforts to cut Medicaid and even set their health care systems on a better long-term trajectory — if they are willing to act boldly. (Hayden Rooke-Ley, 7/24)

Over the past two decades, scientists have developed a revolutionary new class of medicines with the power to halt or even reverse disease. These medicines — genetically targeted therapies, or GTTs — use RNA or DNA to address the root cause of disease rather than treating only symptoms. But a technical oversight in legislation passed by Congress in 2022 is now making it much harder for biotech companies to pursue these medicines. (Yvonne Greenstreet, 7/24)

Last week, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief narrowly escaped a devastating $400 million budget cut thanks to Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), who voted alongside their Democratic colleagues to protect the program. That was a relief: Since its creation under President George W. Bush in 2003, the anti-HIV/AIDS program has saved an estimated 26 million lives and enabled 7.8 million babies to be born HIV-free. (7/23)

We’re exposed to these plastics in countless ways, whether it’s the worn car tires that release them into the air or the plastic-lined cans that get them into our food. I know this is hard, but probably the most important thing you can do to reduce your exposure to microplastics is to eat food that you prepare inside your house, made from scratch. I mostly use glass food-storage containers. Have I thrown all my plastic out? No, I have not. But I never use them in the microwave. (Tracey Woodruff, 7/23)

July marks Fibroid Awareness Month. Fibroids likely affect you or someone you know because 80% of all women have this condition — marked by non-cancerous growths of the uterus. I am one of those women. I was diagnosed with fibroids in 2015 after ending up in the hospital with dangerously low hemoglobin, causing my heart to become enlarged to the brink of cardiac arrest. (Nkem Osian, 7/23)