How Pharma Money Colors Operation Warp Speed’s Quest to Defeat COVID
A Trump administration maneuver allows executives who are leading the federal effort to keep investments in drug companies that would benefit from the pandemic response.
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Rural Areas Send Their Sickest Patients to Cities, Straining Hospitals
Critically ill rural patients are often sent to city hospitals for high-level treatment, and as their numbers grow, some urban hospitals are buckling under the added strain. Meanwhile, mask-wearing and other pandemic prevention measures remain spotty in rural counties.
Read MoreMedicare Open Enrollment Is Complicated. Here’s How to Get Good Advice.
It’s a complex program with many options — as well as confusing rules and nuances. Here’s how to get reliable guidance.
Read MoreFor Nurses Feeling the Strain of the Pandemic, Virus Resurgence Is ‘Paralyzing’
COVID-19’s toll weighs heavily on nurses, who can suffer stress and other psychological problems if they don’t believe they are able to help their patients sufficiently.
Read MoreNew Legal Push Aims to Speed Magic Mushrooms to Dying Patients
A proposal in Washington state would use right-to-try laws to allow terminally ill patients access to psilocybin — the famed magic mushrooms of America’s psychedelic ’60s — to ease depression and anxiety.
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Were You Notified About Missing Tax Forms for Your ACA Subsidy? Blame COVID.
Some consumers who received tax credits to purchase insurance from Affordable Care Act marketplaces report they’ve received letters in error from the government saying they didn’t file the IRS forms to account for how much money they made and how much funding they received from the government.
Read MoreCalifornia Law Banning Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics Will Transform Industry
The law will ban the manufacture and sale in California of personal care products that contain 24 toxics, including asbestos, formaldehyde and lead, and is expected to fill a gap in federal regulation as companies sell the new formulations nationwide.
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Parents Complain That Pediatricians, Wary of COVID, Shift Sick Kids to Urgent Care
Referrals of children to urgent care clinics or emergency rooms have become so prevalent that the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with interim guidance on how practices can safely continue to see patients. The academy recommended that pediatricians strive “to provide care for the same variety of visits that they provided prior to the public health emergency.”
Read MoreNeed a COVID-19 Nurse? That’ll Be $8,000 a Week
A shortage of nurses has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need. That threatens to shift the supply of nurses toward more affluent areas.
Read MoreWhat Biden Can Do to Combat COVID Right Now
Although President-elect Joe Biden is free to meet with people who will be vital to carry out his administration’s fight against COVID, he and his transition team are blocked from conferring with federal officials because the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge Biden won the election. That could have a critical impact on Biden’s efforts to help fight the coronavirus.
Read MoreSurging LA
Eight months after California Healthline’s Heidi de Marco photographed LA under lockdown, she returned to the same iconic spots. Vehicle and foot traffic are up — as are coronavirus cases.
Read MoreThese Front-Line Workers Could Have Retired. They Risked Their Lives Instead.
An investigation by KHN and The Guardian shows that 329 health care workers age 65 or older have reportedly died of COVID-19.
Read MoreKHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Transition Troubles Mount as COVID Spreads
COVID-19 is spreading rapidly around the U.S. even before Thanksgiving promises to accelerate the trend. There are two promising vaccine candidates, but because President Donald Trump still refuses to concede the election and is holding up the official transition, President-Elect Joe Biden and his team cannot access plans for distributing those vaccines. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
Read MoreTrump’s Lame-Duck Status Leaves Governors to Wing It on COVID
As coronavirus cases surge, state officials can’t afford to wait for a new president to take office before taking action. But some governors’ initiatives seem to be little more than policy tweaks or symbolic gestures.
Read MoreFear of Flying Is a COVID-Era Conundrum
As coronavirus cases take off across the U.S., airlines promote holiday deals and encourage travel. But are flyers throwing caution to the wind?
Read MoreFlorida’s New Hospital Industry Head Ran Medicaid in State and Fought Expansion
The state’s hospital association in September picked Mary Mayhew to be its new CEO. While leading the state Medicaid office, she was a vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion program.
Read MoreSurprise Federal Drug Rule Directs Insurers to Reveal What They Pay for Prescription Drugs
A provision the Trump administration tucked into its final rule on health plan price transparency requires telling consumers what they will pay out-of-pocket for drugs and showing them what the plan paid.
Read MoreTake It From an Expert: Fauci’s Hierarchy of Safety During COVID
In a new interview, the nation’s top infectious disease expert tells us how to survive the coming months and describes how hard it is when people still insist the coronavirus outbreak is “fake news.”
Read MoreKHN’s ‘What the Health?’: What Would Dr. Fauci Do?
Anthony Fauci is one of the nation’s most trusted voices during public health emergencies. As the head of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, Fauci has helped guide the nation through the HIV/AIDS epidemic and more recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika. In this special episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” podcast, Fauci sits down with KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal to talk about how to navigate the next phase of the coronavirus pandemic and what the incoming Biden administration should do first.
Read MorePeople Proving to Be Weakest Link for Apps Tracking COVID Exposure
Contact tracers in many states are stretched thin. Colorado is among the latest states to launch an app that aims to help, based on the COVID contact-tracing tool built by Apple and Google. But there’s a chicken-and-egg problem: More people will use them if they prove to work, but the apps become effective only if more people use them.
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