KHN Weekly Edition: Sept. 10, 2021

‘Luckiest Man Alive’: Why 9/11 First Responders’ Outlooks May Improve Even as Physical Health Fails
By Michael McAuliff The New York City Fire Department’s 20-year report on the health consequences of the 9/11 terrorist attacks finds that first responders consistently report mental health quality-of-life indicators that are better than those of average Americans, even as their physical health declines.

It’s Not Just Covid: Recall Candidates Represent Markedly Different Choices on Health Care
By Samantha Young and Rachel Bluth Those seeking to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in Tuesday’s recall election disagree with him on more than mask and vaccine mandates. The conservative candidates tend to favor free-market solutions over Newsom’s expansion of publicly funded health coverage.

ECMO Life Support Is a Last Resort for Covid, and in Short Supply in South
By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio Many more people could benefit from the lifesaving treatment than are receiving it, which has made for messy triaging as the delta variant surges across the South and in rural communities with low covid vaccination rates.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The Future of Public Health
The covid pandemic has spotlighted the often-unseen role of public health in Americans’ daily lives. And the picture has not all been pretty. What is public health and why is it so important — and controversial? Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, explains the basics. Then, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Lauren Weber of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss what could happen next.

Even in Red States, Colleges Gravitate to Requiring Vaccines and Masks
By Michelle Andrews As students return to campus, schools across the country are taking steps to enforce public health advice to keep people safe from covid. In deeply conservative South Carolina when elected officials tried to stop that, a professor took on the establishment and won.

‘Religious’ Exemptions Add Legal Thorns to Looming Vaccine Mandates
By Mark Kreidler No major religion’s teachings denounce vaccination, but that hasn’t kept individual churches and others from providing religious “cover” for people to avoid submitting to vaccination as a workplace requirement.

‘An Arm and a Leg’: How Charity Care Made It Into the ACA
By Dan Weissmann In this episode, we hear how the political tango over guaranteeing that nonprofit hospitals provide charity care nearly tanked the Affordable Care Act — and how the battle over the ACA “broke America.”

Colorado Clinic’s Prescription for Healthier Patients? Lawyers
By Jakob Rodgers Medical-legal partnerships in Montana, Colorado and elsewhere across the nation operate on the notion that fixing patients’ legal ills is a vital part of their health care.

California Set to Spend Billions on Curing Homelessness and Caring for ‘Whole Body’ Politic
By Angela Hart California is embarking on a five-year experiment to infuse its health insurance program for low-income people with billions of dollars in nonmedical services spanning housing, food delivery and addiction care. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the goal is to improve care for the program’s sickest and costliest members and save money, but will it work?

Florida Spine Surgeon and Device Company Owner Charged in Kickback Scheme
By Fred Schulte Dr. Kingsley R. Chin and SpineFrontier were the subject of a recent KHN “Spinal Tap” investigation.

Listen: Many Schools Are Buying High-Tech Air Purifiers. What Should Parents Know?
Studies have shown that better ventilation and air circulation can greatly reduce covid-19 transmission. But rather than stocking up on HEPA filters, some school districts are turning to high-tech air purification strategies.

The Pandemic Almost Killed Allie. Her Community’s Vaccination Rate Is 45%.
By Sarah Varney As the delta variant overtakes Mississippi and other undervaccinated parts of the country, one 13-year-old girl’s experience with covid and MIS-C shows a community’s reluctance to embrace public health precautions and continued vulnerability to the pandemic.

V-Safe: How Everyday People Help the CDC Track Covid Vaccine Safety With Their Phones
By Amanda Michelle Gomez V-safe is a new safety monitoring system that lets anyone who has been vaccinated against covid-19 report possible side effects directly to federal health officials. Experts believe the smartphone tool has so far helped demonstrate the vaccines are safe.

Watch: Same Providers, Similar Surgeries, But Different Bills
KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal joins "CBS This Morning" to discuss the latest Bill of the Month installment, in which a man discovered the hard way that health plans can vary from one job to the next, even if the insurer is the same.