Axios

Mississippi became the third state to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth in 2023 after Gov. Tate Reeves (R) signed the GOP-led bill into law on Tuesday.

The big picture: The move comes amid a mounting attack on trans rights that has escalated in recent weeks as high-profile Republicans, including former President Trump, are jockeying to establish increasingly extreme positions on gender-affirming care.

Democrats in Congress are warning the Biden administration that federal agencies could be indirectly aiding state and local law enforcement investigations that could result in the prosecution of abortion providers and patients.

Driving the news: Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) expressed concern that FBI and Department of Homeland Security resources could be used to help undermine access to reproductive care, according to a letter lawmakers sent Monday evening.

Visits to emergency departments and physicians' offices have grown more complex and costly over time — at least based on the way providers are billing, per a Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker report released Monday.

What they're saying: "There is a trend towards visits being billed at higher levels over time," the authors wrote. "For consumers who bear the marginal costs of more expensive services — those with co-insurance or deductibles — this trend impacts out-of-pocket costs in addition to overall health system costs."

Paratus Sciences, a Massachusetts drug discovery startup leveraging bat biology, has raised $100 million in venture capital funding.

Why it matters: This has been a winning week for bats, long maligned for spreading disease and general creepiness.

China's Foreign Ministry claimed on Tuesday that the country has been "open and transparent” about its efforts to trace the origins of COVID-19 and accused the U.S. of politicizing the issue.

Driving the news: News reports emerged over the weekend that U.S. Department of Energy concluded in a "low confidence" assessment that the pandemic most likely started from a laboratory leak.

The Biden administration's decision last week to continue restricting Medicare coverage for a class of Alzheimer's drugs has angered some Republicans and renewed a thorny debate over when seniors should have access to new treatments — and under what conditions.

Why it matters: The issue raises fundamental questions about government discretion and how much data is needed before making a drug available to the public. But it's an especially fraught debate with Alzheimer's — a degenerative disease with no cure that that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills.

Almost 7 million children and teens are at risk of losing their health coverage when the public health emergency ends, new estimates from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute show.

Why it matters: States in April will begin redetermining Medicaid eligibility as pandemic-inspired coverage requirements lapse and enhanced federal matching funds dry up.

A new U.S. government assessment that COVID-19 likely originated from a lab leak in China has ignited yet another round of political furor around the issue, adding to many Republicans' anger over how the pandemic was handled even as many scientists remain convinced the virus most likely originated naturally.

Why it matters: Even though U.S. intelligence agencies are divided on which direction the evidence points, some prominent members of the GOP are already seizing on the news as evidence that they were right all along.