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The CDC says everyone over 6 months old should get the new covid booster. But the emergency response mechanisms that supported earlier vaccine campaigns are gone. As one expert wonders: How to get boosters to people beyond Democrats, college graduates, and those with high incomes?
The percentage of working-age adults with health insurance went up and the uninsured rate dropped last year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this week. There isn’t much suspense about which way the uninsured rate is now trending, as states continue efforts to strip ineligible beneficiaries from their Medicaid rolls. But is the focus on the uninsured obscuring the struggles of the underinsured? Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico join KFF Health News’ Emmarie Huetteman to discuss these issues and more.
As covid-19 hospitalizations tick upward with fall approaching, the CDC says it’s time for new boosters — and not only for those at highest risk of serious disease. Here are seven things you need to know.
Chances are, if you aren’t older, chronically ill, or obese, you don’t need a forthcoming covid vaccine to stay out of the hospital. But it probably wouldn’t hurt.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Anti-vaccine tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, whose wild assertions have been repeatedly debunked, wrongly attributes deaths following vaccination to the vaccines themselves. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which runs the database, calls that inaccurate and irresponsible.
Though health policies in general got little airtime, the discussion of whether candidates support a federal abortion ban underscored how Republicans, in a post-Roe environment, face political challenges on the issue.
The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 cycle took place without front-runner Donald Trump — and with hardly a mention of health issues save for abortion. Meanwhile, in Florida, patients dropped from the Medicaid program are suing the state for not giving them enough notice or a way to contest their being dropped from the program. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
Flu. Covid. RSV. When and how to get vaccinated against them can be confusing. Here are some of the most important things to know.
Mandy Cohen, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earned praise for her leadership and communication as the face of North Carolina’s response to covid-19. People in the state’s most vulnerable communities tell a more complicated story.
A new poll from KFF shows many Americans aren’t willing to embrace misinformation — but aren’t willing to reject it either. And they don’t know whom to trust.
In early 2020, U.S. public health labs received covid-19 tests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were flawed, as a result of poor design and contamination. Now the CDC is overhauling its lab operations, but efforts to be better prepared for future threats won’t be easy, observers say.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Even as the covid-19 pandemic wanes, litigation — whether about vaccines, masks, or a range of other public health policies made during the pandemic — isn’t about to end.
Supporters say the proposed rules would balance the goals of increasing access to health care and helping prevent medication misuse. Opponents say the rules would make it difficult for some patients — especially those in rural areas — to get care.
What does a day in the life of the nation’s top health official really look like? And how much of their agenda is set by the White House? In this special episode of KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” — taped before a live audience at Aspen Ideas: Health, part of the Aspen Ideas Festival, in Aspen, Colorado — host and chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner leads a rare conversation with the current and two former U.S. secretaries of Health and Human Services. Secretary Xavier Becerra and former secretaries Kathleen Sebelius and Alex Azar talk candidly about what it takes to run a department with more than 80,000 employees and a budget larger than those of many countries.
Richard Coble issued vaccine waivers to patients in at least three states without examining them. He was exposed by a Nashville TV station that bought a waiver for a Labrador retriever named Charlie.
The views of the leader of a broad anti-vaccine movement who is now running for president are unchallenged in public forums run by several prominent Silicon Valley figures.
Some GOP members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic have two-stepped around vaccine skepticism, proclaiming themselves to be pro-vaccine while also validating the beliefs of people who oppose vaccine mandates. The result could have serious public health consequences.
A bipartisan deal to raise the government’s borrowing limit dashed Republican hopes for new Medicaid work requirements and other health spending cuts. Democrats secured the compromise by making relatively modest concessions, including ordering the return of unspent covid funds and limiting other health spending.
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