Last year proved something important about women’s health: public pressure can still slow bad decisions — even under a Trump administration and a Republican‑controlled Congress. In a few cases, it stopped them outright.
Those wins were mostly defensive: preserving programs, delaying actions that were absurd, or getting courts to intervene. (One real exception: the FDA finally removing the black‑box warning on hormone replacement therapy.)
The coming year won’t bring sweeping shifts. 2026 will be defined by the November midterms — and by an administration trying to avoid political exposure until voters weigh in. Unlike 2025, the public will have a chance to register their views. Here’s what that means.
Medicaid Cuts Will Lead to More Moms Dying
Last year’s Trump budget bill slashed $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years. Medicaid is the country’s largest insurer and covers 41% of U.S. births.
Technically, pregnant women are exempt from “work requirements,” one of the main levers Republicans used to cut so much money. But eligibility checks are going from yearly to every six months, meaning more pregnant women could get kicked off unintentionally.
Reduced federal dollars also squeeze state budgets. And because money is fungible, cuts won’t necessarily come from optional areas — they can eliminate recently expanded postpartum care.
The evidence on outcomes is already clear:
Giving postpartum moms a full year of Medicaid after deliver led to 7 fewer deaths per 10,000 live births, according to a study from Women’s Health Issues.
Families USA found that from 2019–2023, postpartum death rates were 35% higher in states without expanded Medicaid.
In the same analysis, deaths surged 46% in non‑expansion states, compared to 21% in expansion states during the pandemic.
The impact won’t fully show up in 2026 data, but maternal‑mortality shifts appear over years, not months. And the direction will be unmistakable.
Federal Women’s Health Funding Dips…But There’s Hope
Private donors to women’s health research and programs really stepped up in 2025, including Melinda Gates with $100M over several years; the Gates Foundation with $500M over five. While those pledges are meaningful, they are essentially a rounding error compared to federal spending on women’s health.
Last year’s record‑setting government shutdown was deeply unpopular, especially for Trump. The current budget runs out on January 30th. Staring down big losses in the midterms, Republicans are trying to pass regular spending bills to keep the government open before the January 30 deadline. (And not rely on continuing resolutions that keeping funding essentially flat.)
The bill that funds healthcare spending in the US is notoriously hard to pass, and it’s unclear if or when it will get a vote. But given that the Republicans leading the process said they will fund the government at a lower amount that current spending, we can expect cuts to women’s health.
A major report from 2024 found women’s health research makes up roughly $4 billion at NIH, with additional health funding going toward programs that support maternal care, mental health support, disease tracking, and preventive services. In all, that brings the estimated amount of federal funding for women’s health to around $5 billion in recent years.
My prediction is that this amount will come down, especially because the House version of the spending bill completely eliminates a nationwide reproductive health program, which previously got $286 million.
But there is a reason to hope: The Senate version of the bill actually approved a 30% boost for the Office of Research on Women’s Health, bringing it to $100 million. And it kept the reproductive health clinic funding.
TLDR: There will likely be cuts, but the ultimate product I think will reflect the Senate version more than the House. So, there’s a small potential the funding stays flat, but very hard to see any meaningful increases. And private donors can’t fill that void.
FDA Won’t Actually Restrict Mifepristone or Antidepressants in Pregnancy (This Year)
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and HHS Secretary Kennedy have already signaled they’ll delay any action on the abortion pill until after the midterms, according to December reporting from Bloomberg.
The drug’s review only began after Senate Republicans pushed the agency to accept a “white paper” from an antiabortion group — one that used questionable methods yet claimed the pill is far more dangerous than believed.
Why the delay? Because banning or restricting the abortion pill is unpopular, and any aggressive move would likely be tied up in court before it could take effect. The same logic applies to restricting antidepressants for pregnant women.
But continue to expect shiny‑object distractions — claims like “Tylenol causes autism” or “antidepressants are dangerous in pregnancy” — designed to give the MAHA base symbolic wins. Even though these are not official actions, they confuse clinicians and patients while avoiding real regulatory risk.
The Bottom Line
These outcomes aren’t accidental. Republican leaders made deliberate choices: sweeping Medicaid cuts, very likely cutting federal funding, and strategic delays to avoid unpopular moves before the midterms.
What’s different this year is that voters get a say. The consequences of these decisions won’t all be visible by November, but the trajectory is clear. Women’s health won’t be shaped by backroom negotiations and stall tactics alone. It will be shaped by whether voters choose to reward the leaders who made these decisions — or replace them.
