July 21, 2026
Tonight: a $20 billion moonshot plan for women's health, nurses hold their own on abortion care, and more.
— Meghan McCarthy
THE $20 BILLION MOONSHOT PLAN TO CLOSE THE WOMEN'S HEALTH GAP
A coalition led by ACOG and the Society for Women's Health Research is calling on Congress to spend $20 billion over 10 years to close the women's health gap, with a national strategy endorsed by 37 medical organizations spanning cardiology, neurology, and OB-GYNs. The framework sets measurable targets across research funding, public-awareness campaigns, and getting findings into the clinic. Congress might be divided, but this hands advocates a concrete yardstick.
ON MEDICAID? HALF AS LIKELY TO GET MENOPAUSE HORMONES
Women on Medicaid are about half as likely to use menopausal hormone therapy as privately insured women, even accounting for age and health, according to a JAMA Network Open analysis of around 1,700 women aged 45 to 64. Hormone therapy is the most effective treatment for hot flashes and night sweats, and the gap mirrors long-documented racial disparities in menopause care. Coverage, not just preference, appears to shape who gets treated.
NURSES AND MIDWIVES PRESCRIBE ABORTION PILLS AS SAFELY AS DOCTORS
Medication abortions provided by nurse practitioners, midwives, and physician associates were as effective and as safe as those from physicians in a review of more than 59,000 abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics across Southern California. Completion rates ran 92.9% for advanced-practice clinicians versus 90.1% for doctors, with serious complications under 0.1% for both. The finding matters because 26 states bar these clinicians from prescribing abortion pills, restrictions the authors say the data don't support. Loosening them could widen access where doctors are scarce.
STUDY: PCOS ALSO BRINGS CARDIOVASCULAR RISK
Women with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) — the condition the WHO and Endocrine Society renamed from PCOS in May — are about 2.5 times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than women without it. They are also nearly four times as likely to develop peripheral artery disease, according to a study of more than 2 million patients. The risk held even after adjusting for smoking, obesity, cholesterol, and diabetes, suggesting the condition drives cardiovascular disease on its own. It's the largest US study on the question so far, and the stakes are big: 10 to 13% of reproductive-age women have PMOS, and roughly 70% don't know it.
THE GOVERNMENT DOUBTS ITS OWN NEW FERTILITY BENEFIT
The Trump administration's proposed rule letting employers offer standalone fertility coverage, capped at $120,000 per person, comes with an unusual caveat: the government isn't sure it will work. In the rule's own preamble, regulators warn that because mostly people already worried about infertility would be the most likely to buy the voluntary, largely employee-paid coverage, the risk pool could tip into adverse selection and push premiums high enough to make the products unprofitable. They even concede it might lead some people to delay trying to conceive and admit they don't know how many insurers would offer it at all. It would take effect in 2027 if finalized.