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A case study of COVID-19 testing in Sacramento, California, shows that bottlenecks in the testing supply chain this summer limited people’s access to tests and dramatically delayed results. Similar scenarios played out in communities across the country.
Poor information-sharing between hospitals and public health agencies has hurt the response to the pandemic. Some health care systems and IT companies are making inroads, but an overhaul would cost billions.
About 70 college students are enrolled this summer in a program developed by San Francisco researchers and funded by the National Institutes of Health that allows them to explore the pandemic’s impact on communities facing health disparities.
The pandemic is racing through packed apartment blocks as Mexican and Central American workers bring the virus home to their families.
A review by KHN and the Associated Press finds at least 49 state and local public health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired since April across 23 states. One of the latest departures came Sunday, when California’s public health director was ousted.
There’s less time, less attention and fewer resources this year, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers from acting on controversial health care legislation not directly related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Hundreds of thousands of essential workers have kept their kids in day care during the pandemic out of necessity and, so far, these centers haven’t been big disease spreaders. But the evidence remains incomplete.
Health plans offered through Covered California, the health insurance exchange, will increase premiums by a statewide average of 0.6% next year. Health insurers reported strong profits in the second quarter of 2020 as their expenses plunged because of fewer surgeries and patient visits for non-COVID treatment.
Richard Costigan, a well-respected fixture in state Capitol circles, has detailed his family’s ongoing experiences with COVID-19 on social media after catching the virus — he surmises — at a backyard gathering. The former Schwarzenegger aide wants people to know this virus doesn’t care who you are.
Americans are avoiding hospitals and clinics by the millions, even when they shouldn’t, and many experts expect a jump in preventable disease diagnoses after the COVID crisis eases. Paradoxically, the pandemic may have been good for some heart patients, however.
Early in the pandemic, insurers expected the costs of treating COVID-19 would vastly increase medical spending. Instead, non-COVID care has plummeted and insurers have pocketed the result. Still, few industry observers are predicting broad-based premium cuts in 2021, though some health plans have proposed lowering their rates.
Will Lightbourne, the new director of the California Department of Health Care Services, says government must address the racial disparities laid bare by COVID-19 and improve care for the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Newly released employment data underscores the lingering toll the pandemic has taken on a range of outpatient services in California and across the U.S., from pediatric and family medical practices to dental offices, medical labs and home health care.
While Congress negotiates liability protection for reopening businesses as part of its latest pandemic bailout package, some employers are already requiring workers to sign waivers agreeing not to sue if they get COVID-19 on the job.
Newsletter editor Lauren Olsen wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don’t have to.
With COVID-19 tests bogged down in backlogs, some states that relied on private laboratories, such as Quest Diagnostics, are trying to adapt as caseloads rise.
State officials had projected that 2 million Californians would join Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for low-income people, by July because of the economic devastation wrought by COVID-19. Yet enrollment has barely budged, and why is unclear.
Check out KHN’s video series — Behind The Byline: How the Story Got Made. Come along as journalists and producers offer an insider’s view of health care coverage that does not quit.
The pandemic has given the National Institutes of Health an opportunity to show the value of its $1.5 billion “All of Us” research program. A major effort to make the platform’s database representative of America resulted in minorities making up more than half of its more than 270,000 volunteers.
Although younger people are hospitalized and die less frequently than their elders when infected with COVID-19, their cases are harder to trace. As a result, the virus is spreading uncontrollably throughout much of Southern California. Even hospital staffs are affected by community spread.
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