The nurses of New York City are a-strikin’.

In what has been touted as the largest nurse strike in the city’s history, 15,000 nurses from Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals started striking on Jan. 12. The issues at the top of the docket include addressing expected cuts in health benefits, better workplace violence protections, and safer staffing.

Almost immediately, the strike was shrouded in drama.

Three Mount Sinai labor and delivery nurses were fired the day before the strike began. The unit had been experiencing “aggressive” union busting, including a prior incident in which nurses were disciplined after going to a union meeting, a Jan. 13 New York State Nurses Association release claims.

According to the hospital’s statement, these nurses were terminated for “interfering with patient safety by deliberately sabotaging [its] emergency preparedness drills,” including allegedly hiding critical supplies for newborns from temporary staff and then lying about their involvement, despite security footage of the incident.

Union President Nancy Hagans also alleged in a Jan. 14 statement that Montefiore attempted to “slander” and “disrespect” its nurses through “outrageous PR campaigns.”

Montefiore didn’t respond to a request for comment about the allegations or any campaigns it may be running.

Here’s where everything currently stands.—NO

The 2026 health insurance landscape is becoming clearer, and it’s not looking great for patients or providers.

Enrollment in Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans dropped by 1.4 million, with 22.8 million people covered as of Jan. 3 compared to about 24.2 million this time last year, per data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

That means there’s still more than twice as many people enrolled in marketplace plans compared to 2020, before the expansion of federal premium tax credits. However, it’s likely even more people will lose coverage in the next few months, thanks to a spike in premiums caused by that expansion’s expiration and other factors like increased hospital costs, per KFF.

The deadline to sign up for ACA coverage was Jan. 15 in most states, but many more people may get kicked off their plans because they can’t afford their increased premiums, JoAnn Volk, codirector of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, told Healthcare Brew.

“I think we will see a drop in coverage. We don’t know what that number is yet,” Volk said. “Getting that first premium paid is critical to being enrolled.”

But a lot still remains uncertain.—CC

Big Tech made another move into healthcare this week, with Amazon announcing on Jan. 21 a new AI tool that provides patients with information on everything from doctors in their area to checking their exam results.

Called Amazon One Medical’s Health AI, it’s an agentic AI assistant designed to give “24/7 personalized health guidance grounded in each patient’s unique medical history,” according to a press release.

Existing One Medical can access the tool via an app, meaning it will already have some of their medical data from prior appointments and pharmaceutical services to provide recommendations. The Al assistant is HIPAA compliant, according to the company.

Industry context. The news comes as tech companies like OpenAI announced ChatGPT Health, Anthropic released Claude for Healthcare, and Google launched MedGemma earlier this month, signaling that AI will increasingly be used by patients to answer medical questions.

Find more details on the new tool here.—CM

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