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The American Cancer Society's latest colorectal cancer (CRC) report projects 158,850 new cases and 55,230 deaths in the US in 2026. Although overall incidence has dropped 45% since its 1985 peak, a troubling counter-trend is emerging: rates are rising sharply among younger adults, increasing 3% per year among those aged 20–49 and 0.4% annually among those 50–64, with younger patients now accounting for 45% of all new cases—up from 27% in 1995. Three in 4 CRC cases in adults younger than 50 years are diagnosed at an advanced stage, and CRC is now the leading cause of cancer-related death in Americans younger than 50 years. Screening via colonoscopy can reduce incidence by 40% and mortality by 60%, but uptake remains uneven, with lower rates among uninsured, immigrant, and less-educated populations. Racial and geographic disparities are stark; Alaska Native individuals have CRC incidence and mortality rates more than double those of White patients, and experts stress that earlier screening, awareness of symptoms, and knowing family history are the 3 critical pillars for combating this disease in a rapidly shifting patient population.
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At a March 2026 webinar hosted by The American Journal of Managed Care® and Managed Healthcare Executive®, a pair of health policy experts painted a picture of a Trump administration health care agenda that is advancing unevenly—making headway on drug pricing while leaving coverage policy in disarray. On drug pricing, 16 major manufacturers have voluntarily agreed to most-favored-nation (MFN) pricing, covering roughly 70% of affected spending, largely through the threat of regulation rather than formal policy, a dynamic one panelist argued has already achieved its core goal. Meanwhile, enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace subsidies expired at the end of 2025 with no replacement in place, leaving millions of lower-income enrollees facing steep premium hikes heading into a year that already projects a 26% average premium increase. A longer-term concern raised by community oncology advocates is the Inflation Reduction Act's unintended effect on physician reimbursement: when Medicare's negotiated drug prices take effect in 2028, oncology practice add-on payments could fall by 49%, roughly $12 billion per year, potentially forcing community cancer clinics to close and driving patients toward costlier hospital-based care.
Diabetes rates among children enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP rose steadily between 2016 and 2021, with overall prevalence climbing 11.4% over the study period, according to new findings. Whereas type 1 diabetes increased modestly (6.5%), type 2 diabetes surged by 24.3%, with particularly sharp spikes among boys (48.1%) and children in the western US (51.8%). Rural children had higher baseline rates, but urban populations saw faster growth over time. Researchers noted this is the first study to comprehensively document pediatric diabetes trends across the Medicaid population at a national scale and called for targeted prevention, early screening, and resource allocation, especially for subgroups like male patients and western US residents that were previously considered lower risk.
A large study of more than 1.5 million women found that ACA Medicaid expansion was associated with a 4.8% lower risk of breast cancer death, roughly 1400 deaths averted per 100,000 patients over 5 years. Benefits were most dramatic for women with advanced disease (a 14% mortality reduction for stage IV patients) and those receiving immunotherapy (24%). Hispanic women saw the largest gains at 19%, whereas improvements for non-Hispanic Black women were more modest and not statistically significant in absolute survival terms, underscoring persistent racial inequities. Most strikingly, women in the lowest-income neighborhoods in expansion states actually experienced worse outcomes—a 4.8% increase in mortality hazard—pointing to structural barriers like transportation gaps and limited access to quality oncology care that insurance coverage alone cannot fix. The researchers concluded that coverage expansion must be paired with targeted interventions addressing social determinants of health to meaningfully close these gaps.
A retrospective analysis of 157,261 pediatric Medicaid managed care beneficiaries in a northeastern US state found that where a child lives has a significant bearing on how they access health care. Using the Child Opportunity Index (COI) to measure neighborhood conditions across education, health, environment, and socioeconomic domains, researchers found that children in the lowest-opportunity neighborhoods were 11.5 percentage points less likely to have a primary care visit and 1.4 times more likely to visit the emergency department (ED) compared with peers in the highest-opportunity neighborhoods. More than two-thirds of beneficiaries in the lowest-opportunity neighborhoods were Black or Hispanic/Latino, reflecting deeply entrenched racial disparities. The findings point to barriers that insurance coverage alone cannot overcome, including transportation challenges, limited provider hours, language gaps, and caregiver constraints, and call on Medicaid managed care organizations to use tools like the COI to target interventions, address health-related social needs, and partner with community organizations to reduce preventable ED visits and improve primary care access in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
