As the country prepares to ring in the new year, new state laws will take effect around the country on a host of issues, including the use of artificial intelligence in health care and elections, paid family and medical leave and rising medical insurance costs. <\/p>\n
Some states are looking for ways to soften the blow of higher health care premiums as Affordable Care Act tax subsidies expire after Congress failed to extend them. And on the verge of the coming year\u2019s midterm elections, a slew of more restrictive voting laws are taking effect.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the laws that go live in 2026:<\/p>\n
Deepfakes in elections, AI misuse in health care <\/p>\n
Thirty-eight states passed legislation this year to deal with the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, including on such topics as preventing the misuse of AI in elections and regulating how the technology disperses medical information, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures<\/a>.<\/p>\n AI will continue to be a top issue for states despite President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order<\/a> in December seeking to limit state regulations on AI, said the group\u2019s CEO, Tim Storey. <\/p>\n Trump issued his executive order \u2014 which aimed to prevent a piecemeal, state-level approach to AI regulation in favor of “minimally burdensome national policy” for the use of the technology \u2014 after Congress was unable to pass legislation over the past year. As a result, it lacks the strength that legislation would provide to rein in state-level actions given that Congress has the exclusive power to pre-empt state laws under the Constitution. <\/p>\n \u201cStates have taken the lead, as they have in so many issues,\u201d Storey said at a recent news briefing. \u201cAI is the big one.\u201d<\/p>\n In the absence of federal legislation, several states have taken action, including on the issues of so-called deepfakes in elections and AI as a medical resource.<\/p>\n California passed legislation<\/a> barring AI developers and businesses from giving patients the impression that they are interacting with licensed health care professionals when they are really speaking with chatbots. Oregon enacted similar legislation<\/a> preventing AI programs from using the title \u201cnurse\u201d when they give medical advice.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Montana<\/a> and South Dakota<\/a> passed laws this year that now require disclosures about using deepfakes in elections \u2014 measures that could come into play during next year’s midterms.<\/p>\n Deepfakes, which are images, video or audio that are digitally altered to create false representations of people\u2019s statements or actions, have been used to cause confusion in state and national elections. During the 2024 presidential election, for example, NBC News reported<\/a> that a political consultant used AI to create a robocall impersonating President Joe Biden, telling New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the primary. <\/p>\n Congress has yet to pass legislation to prohibit deepfake content that could mislead voters during elections. <\/p>\n Paid family and medical leave<\/p>\n Maine<\/a>, Delaware<\/a> and Minnesota<\/a> will have paid family and medical leave policies going into effect in 2026<\/a>, joining several other states that already provide such benefits. Maryland, Vermont and Washington also passed legislation expanding or amending existing paid family leave policies, with the latter state’s changes taking effect this coming year. Paid family and medical leave allows employees to receive wages when they take leaves of absence for medical reasons, give birth or take care of family members. <\/p>\n Minnesota state Sen. Alice Mann, a physician who is a member of the state\u2019s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, sponsored the state\u2019s paid leave bill. She said witnessing her patients having to choose between taking care of themselves or loved ones and missing paychecks pushed her to back the legislation. <\/p>\n \u201cI see people every single day who struggle. People are left with the choice of taking care of themselves, their family members, their new baby and not getting a paycheck anymore,\u201d Mann said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not an option that the rest of the world has to face.\u201d<\/p>\n While federal law<\/a> provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid job protection for people in need of medical or caretaking leave, the U.S. is the only developed economy<\/a> without paid parental or medical leave. It\u2019s also one of the only countries that don\u2019t provide paid sick leave at a national level<\/a>. <\/p>\n Mann said that while Minnesota\u2019s legislation was passed in 2023, time was needed before it was implemented for people to actually know that the bill existed and understand how it works. That involved a $5 million public information campaign to educate \u201cemployers and community groups on what this policy is, what it does and how you participate,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Delaware\u2019s and Maine\u2019s policies, which were passed in 2022 and 2023, respectively, also go into effect this coming year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very popular policy, again, because we\u2019re all human beings, for crying out loud, and if it wasn\u2019t popular, we wouldn\u2019t be the only country left without it, right?\u201d Mann said. \u201cIt is sustainable. It is something that we all use. And so I hope, I expect, that other states will see this, realize this and move to have their own policies in place.\u201d<\/p>\n Lapsing Obamacare subsidies <\/p>\n All 50 states will face rising health care costs starting in January after Congress was unable to pass legislation to extend expiring Obamacare premium subsidies before the end of the year. <\/p>\n In an August special session, Colorado became one of the few states to enact legislation<\/a> aimed at softening the blow of the rising premiums, dedicating $100 million to offset premium hikes in the state\u2019s health care exchange.<\/p>\n State Rep. Kyle Brown, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said the $100 million will serve as \u201ca bridge\u201d for 2026, ensuring that Colorado has funds to sustain some subsidizing of its health care exchange and \u201ccushion the blow\u201d from the lapse in federal subsidies.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore we passed the bill, people\u2019s premiums on average were expected to go up by 175% in Colorado. We passed the bill, and now they\u2019re only going up by 100%,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWhich is still like \u2018yeah, instead of tripling, they\u2019re doubling.\u2019 But it could have been worse.\u201d <\/p>\n According to KFF<\/a>, a health policy research group, Affordable Care Act premium payments are likely to more than double because of the expiring subsidies. In Colorado, premiums for about 225,00 people will increase by an average of 101%<\/a>, according to the state Insurance Division.<\/p>\n Brown said that he had hoped Congress would extend the Obamacare subsidies but that he came to the realization that the funds weren\u2019t coming through after having watched the U.S. government shut down for six weeks last fall \u2014 the longest federal funding lapse in the country\u2019s history \u2014 as Democratic and Republican lawmakers deadlocked over the issue. Rising health care prices and the high cost of living overall are expected to be top issues in the 2026 midterms. <\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like states are on their own. We don\u2019t have a willing partner in the federal government anymore, and so we have to do what we can to take care of our folks and make health care as affordable and accessible as possible,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n Stricter voting laws <\/p>\n This past year, 20 states passed 37 bills to restrict voting access and elections, according to the Voting Rights Lab<\/a>, a nonprofit organization that tracks voting- and election-related legislation and aims to expand ballot access. That’s the most since 2021, it said. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, 23 states passed 51 bills intended to improve voting and elections, the group found, saying that is the fewest such measures since it started tracking state legislation. <\/p>\n Kansas and North Dakota eliminated grace periods<\/a> for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but arriving afterward, and eight states passed legislation to restrict or eliminate alternatives to photo ID as proof of voter registration, according to the Voting Rights Lab.<\/p>\n Many of the states that passed such bills might have been influenced by Trump\u2019s executive order<\/a> in March that pushed for broad changes in how the U.S. conducts its elections, said Chris Vasquez, director of legislative tracking at the Voting Rights Lab. <\/p>\n \u201cI think the main thrust of the story of the year is sort of Trump in March issuing this executive order,\u201d Vasquez said. <\/p>\n The order aimed to require that people provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote and required mail-in ballots to be sent in before Election Day. While the proof-of-citizenship requirement was blocked in U.S. District Court in Washington as an executive branch overreach<\/a>, certain states have passed legislation mirroring other policies in the executive order.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did see 27 states introduce some sort of restrictive proof-of-citizenship legislation this year, which is triple what we saw in the previous legislative session,\u201d Vasquez said. \u201cThat, for the most part, wasn\u2019t successful. But then, where you did see some more activity was on the mail ballot deadline side.\u201d <\/p>\n In 2026, he said, Vasquez will be keeping an eye on state redistricting<\/a> and a related Supreme Court case<\/a> that could limit the scope of the Voting Rights Act as harbingers of what could develop at the state level, including efforts to protect against further voting restrictions.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, especially looking at the Supreme Court potentially really curtailing the ability of plaintiffs to bring Voting Rights Act claims in federal court, these state voting rights acts are essentially something to keep an eye on into potential work against potentially voter suppressive laws,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the country prepares to ring in the new year, new state laws will take effect around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-382581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}