Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Essential Workers' Covid Bonus Pay Varied Widely Across US
AP: Bonus Pay For Essential Workers Varied Widely Across States
Over the past year, about one-third of U.S. states have used federal COVID-19 relief aid to reward workers considered essential who dutifully reported to jobs during the pandemic. But who qualified for those bonuses -- and how much they received — varied widely, according to an Associated Press review. While some were paid thousands of dollars, others with similar jobs elsewhere received nothing. (Lieb, 7/10)
NBC News: With Federal Eviction Moratorium Set To Expire, States Offer Patchwork Protections
Beyond the everyday poverty fight, and looming eviction crisis, is a complex problem of government money aimed at preventing evictions from getting into the hands of people who most need it. The digital divide, a thicket of paperwork required to qualify for aid and a hodgepodge of state programs have translated into too little money in too few pockets of people facing eviction, experts told NBC News. (Clark, 7/12)
AP: WVa Rural Surgery Residency Program Gets Planning Grant
The planning and development of West Virginia’s first rural surgery residency program now has the help of a $750,000 federal grant. Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine received the three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the university said in a news release. (7/12)
Los Angeles Times: Illegal Pot Farms Have Invaded The California Desert
Before his corpse was dumped in a shallow grave 50 miles north of Los Angeles, Mauricio Ismael Gonzalez-Ramirez was held prisoner at one of the hundreds of black-market pot farms that have exploded across California’s high desert in the last several years, authorities say. He worked in what has become California’s newest illegal marijuana haven: the Mojave Desert. A world away from the lush forest groves of the “Emerald Triangle” of Northern California, this hot, dry, unforgiving climate has attracted more than a thousand marijuana plantations that fill the arid expanse between the Antelope Valley and the Colorado River. (Cosgrove and Shagun, 7/11)
