Read today’s Kaiser Health News
About health insurance/insurers
Medicare Part D premiums to increase in 2026: CMS will increase Medicare Part D premiums in 2026 while continuing a scaled-back version of its premium stabilization program launched last year.
On July 28, the agency said it took “unprecedented” steps to reject standalone Medicare drug plan bids with steep year-over-year premium increases or reduced benefits, marking the first time it has exercised full authority to deny such bids…
In 2026, the national average monthly bid amount will be $239.27, compared to $179.45 last year…; the base premium will be $38.99, compared to $36.78 last year.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Variation, Overlap, and Stability in Defining Safety Net Hospitals: Findings In this cohort study of 4531 short-term acute care hospitals, between 1% and 55% of similar hospitals were represented across pairs of definitions, with some definitions producing different samples of hospitals year to year. Different definitions produced different groups of hospitals over time, risking overinclusion and/or underinclusion of certain hospitals across different payment programs.
Meaning The findings highlight the trade-offs when considering options to define safety net hospitals.
How HCA, CHS, Tenet and UHS fared in Q2 FYI
Comment: As health plan profits decline because of increased expenses, the reverse side of the coin is the improving finances of hospitals.
In a related article: Where hospital margins are climbing, dropping the most
Hospitals Did Not Capture Half of Patient Harm Events, Limiting Information Needed to Make Care Safer: Hospitals did not capture all OIG-identified patient harm events, nor investigate all harm events they did capture, limiting hospitals’ ability to make improvements for patient safety.
Hospitals did not capture half of patient harm events that occurred among hospitalized Medicare patients. In many cases, staff did not consider these events to be harm or explained that it was not standard practice to capture them. This was often because hospitals applied narrow definitions of harm.
Of the patient harm events that hospitals captured, few were investigated, and even fewer led to hospitals making improvements for patient safety. Some of the improvement actions hospitals took in response to the harm events included training staff and enhancing monitoring for similar events.
About the public’s health
In a first, the Senate confirms a new CDC director:The Senate confirmed Susan Monarez, a health scientist and longtime civil servant, to run the public health agency. She is the first CDC director to be confirmed by the Senate under a law passed in 2023, and the first to serve in the role without a medical degree in more than 70 years. The vote was 51-47, along party lines.
Just One HPV Vaccine Dose Could Protect Against Infection, Research Shows: The first randomized controlled trial of a single-dose HPV vaccine, conducted in Kenya, showed one dose was more than 97% effective against HPV16 and HPV18, which are responsible for around 70% of cervical cancer cases globally.
Risk of adolescent cigarette use in three UK birth cohorts before and after e-cigarettes: Adolescents who use e-cigarettes have a similar smoking prevalence to earlier generations. Policy and prevention should seek to prevent adolescent nicotine exposure via both electronic and combustible cigarettes.