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A Maryland judge's decision to toss several provisions of a 2025 regulation on Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, several of which overlap with more recent rulemaking, has been appealed by the Department of Health and Human Services. According to court documents, HHS filed its appeal last week and a case was opened in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on Tuesday. Maryland District Judge Brendon Hurson had ruled in favor of plaintiffs—several cities and patient advocacy groups—last month. (Minemyer, 7/23)

Molina Healthcare plans to further shrink its Affordable Care Act business in 2027 in a bid to eke out profits from the smaller and sicker insurance marketplace, after the expiration of more generous subsidies caused millions of Americans to flee the exchanges. Molina’s ACA membership fell from 655,000 people at the end of 2025 to 283,000 people in the second quarter, after the insurer raised rates 30% on average to contain rising costs and reduce its exposure to the exchanges, according to results posted aftermarket Wednesday. (Parduhn, 7/23)

Connecticut will provide residents with financial assistance again in 2027 to partly offset expired federal aid for Affordable Care Act health plans, Gov. Ned Lamont said after a campaign event in New Haven earlier this month. (Golvala and Phaneuf, 7/23)

All U.S. states except one in the Mountain West are seeing a decline in the number of people paying for Affordable Care Act coverage. Nationwide, five million fewer people are enrolled than last year, federal data shows. (Kinsey and Merzbach, 7/23)

Dozens of Medicare Advantage insurers are due higher quality bonus payments after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revised their 2026 scores. (Tepper and Broderick, 7/23)

Endeavor Health Northwest Community Hospital hopes to move forward with plans to build a new $175 million cancer and neuroscience center after a state board approved the project earlier this week. (Schencker, 7/23)

A 4-month-old boy comes into the clinic with a fever and a stuffy nose. Vyonne Njeri thinks it's just a cold. Then a yellow box pops up on her computer telling her to check his heart — because his heart rate is elevated. Njeri is a registered clinical officer in Nairobi, Kenya; she sees patients on her own like a nurse practitioner. When she listens with a stethoscope she hears a whoosh — a sign that the infant could have a congenital heart defect. "That's something I would have missed on any other day," Njeri says of the visit a few months ago. "That child would have just gone home." (Kim, 7/23)

As Grace Farris shows in her new book, once someone has switched over to becoming a professional healthcare worker, a whole new set of issues presents itself. (Oksman, 7/23)