Florida’s New Covid Booster Guidance Is Straight-Up Misinformation
By Arthur Allen and Daniel Chang and Sam Whitehead
September 23, 2024
KFF Health News Original
State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo spread more anti-vaccine misinformation by telling Floridians to avoid mRNA vaccines. Vaccine experts and historians can’t remember another state health leader urging residents to avoid an FDA-approved vaccine.
La nueva guía de Florida sobre los refuerzos de covid es pura desinformación
By Arthur Allen and Daniel Chang and Sam Whitehead
September 23, 2024
KFF Health News Original
Clínicos y científicos denuncian este mensaje como una táctica de miedo con motivación política que también debilita los esfuerzos para proteger contra enfermedades como el sarampión y la tos ferina.
Journalists Give Insights Into Opioid Settlements and Picking a Nursing Home
September 21, 2024
KFF Health News Original
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff took to the airwaves recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
Each week, KFF Health News finds longer stories for you to enjoy. Today’s selections are on racism in health care, sickle cell, autism, the gun violence epidemic, and more.
Florida Accused Of Overreach As It Uses Taxpayer Cash To Fight Abortion Issue
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
Even as Republican leaders seek to preserve the state’s six-week abortion ban, Florida health officials are warning providers that they face regulatory actions if they don’t offer life-saving care to pregnant women in emergency situations.
Cigna Scaling Back Medicare Advantage Offerings In 8 States In 2025
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
Modern Healthcare reports that the move by group’s health insurance unit will affect members of certain health plans in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. Meanwhile, Atrium Health cancels many past medical debt judgments.
Ex-Outcome Health Executive Gets 7 Months In Prison For Role In $1B Fraud
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
Ashik Desai was the star witness against his bosses in a trial last year, the Chicago Tribune reports. Other news is on Optum layoffs, Allina Health, the Mayo Clinic, and more.
FDA Catches Indian Drugmaker Destroying Crucial Inspection Papers
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
The documents were needed to verify testing and manufacturing practices at Granules, a company in Telangana, India, that supplies generic medications to the U.S., officials say. More pharmaceutical news is on migraine meds, HIV supplies, inhalers, and more.
LA County Public Health Announces 2 More Cases In Dengue Cluster
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
The two new locally acquired cases are from the same area where the first case was reported last week. In other state news: vaccine hesitancy and the Minnesota measles outbreak; an “epidemic” of antipsychotic drugs in Mississippi nursing homes; and more.
Mpox Vaccines Administered In Africa For The First Time
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
Several hundred high-risk individuals were inoculated in Rwanda. Meanwhile, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the outbreak in Africa is still not under control, with cases rising in several countries.
Congress OKs $3 Billion Stopgap For VA
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
The appropriations measure comes with a stipulation that the department explain why it has a budget shortfall. Also, veterans at five facilities in the Pacific Northwest and Ohio are being alerted that prescription drug copayments soon will be required once again.
Scientists Pinpoint Which Animals May Have Spread Covid At Wuhan Market
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
The list of animals included the raccoon dog, hoary bamboo rat, dog, European rabbit, Amur hedgehog, Malayan porcupine, Reeves’s muntjac, Himalayan marmot, and masked palm civet. The new research doesn’t prove that the animals were infected by the virus, CNN explains, but that their DNA was found very near the virus, creating a strong possibility the animals were infected at the market. NPR takes an even deeper dive into the market’s “Stall A.”
First Edition: Friday, Sept. 20, 2024
September 20, 2024
Morning Briefing
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Rural NC County Is Set To Reopen Its Shuttered Hospital With Help From a New Federal Program
By Taylor Sisk
September 20, 2024
KFF Health News Original
One rural North Carolina county is on track to be among the first where a hospital reopens owing to a new federal hospital classification meant to help save small, struggling facilities.
Fighting Staff Shortages With Scholarships, California Bill Aims To Boost Mental Health Courts
By Molly Castle Work
September 20, 2024
KFF Health News Original
A new bill would create a scholarship program for students who agree to work with specialized courts in California to get patients into treatment, but some people argue the state shouldn’t restrict scholarship aid to a new, untested program given broader behavioral health workforce shortages.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': American Health Under Trump — Past, Present, and Future
September 19, 2024
Podcast
Dreaming of a Trump victory, Republicans have a wish list of health policy changes — including loosening Affordable Care Act regulations to make cheaper coverage available and ending Medicare drug price negotiations. Meanwhile, after a publicly reported death stemming from a state abortion ban, Vice President Kamala Harris is emphasizing the consequences of Trump’s work to overturn Roe v. Wade. Tami Luhby of CNN, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins University join KFF Health News senior editor Emmarie Huetteman to discuss these stories and more.
Las clínicas de abortos, y sus pacientes, se movilizan a medida que cambian las leyes estatales
By Bram Sable-Smith
September 19, 2024
KFF Health News Original
El fallo de la Corte dejó en manos de los estados las políticas sobre el aborto. Desde entonces, 14 estados promulgaron prohibiciones a la práctica que contemplan unas pocas excepciones, mientras que otros han restringido el acceso.
Abortion Clinics — And Patients — Are on the Move as State Laws Shift
By Bram Sable-Smith
September 19, 2024
KFF Health News Original
Last month, Planned Parenthood Great Plains opened its newest clinic in Pittsburg, Kan., a city of about 21,000 people mere minutes from the borders of both Missouri and Oklahoma. It’s the second new clinic the regional affiliate has opened in Kansas in a little over two years, to accommodate the growing number of patients coming […]