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Marilyn Bartlett, credited with saving Montana’s state employee health plan millions of dollars, is a busy consultant now, as states, counties and big businesses try to use her playbook to bring down hospital costs.
The pandemic and economic crisis give states new incentives to extend health coverage to their uninsured residents.
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to have medical conditions that make covid especially dangerous. But a lack of federal tracking means no one knows how many people in disability group housing have fallen ill or died from the virus.
Lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing bills to restrict transgender kids from participating in sports and ban doctors from treating them.
Tribes across the U.S. have turned to social media and the internet as leaders worry about covid-19’s threat to their culture and elders.
Legislators in statehouses across the U.S. face the dual challenge of budgeting in a covid-crippled economy while planning for the pandemic’s long-term effects on mental health and substance abuse services.
Public health officials in Colorado have joined forces with local businesses in a new program meant to encourage people to shop and dine in a covid-crippled economy.
Everyone is trying to figure out how relationships work in the time of covid. That includes a Bozeman, Montana, couple who suddenly found themselves in a long-distance relationship when the pandemic sent their group homes for adults with disabilities into lockdown.
As president, Donald Trump encouraged states to bring in drugs from Canada, where prices are cheaper. It’s not clear if the new administration will follow suit.
Amid the disorganization and confusion of the vaccine distribution, smaller communities may have an advantage. In some long-term care facilities where vaccination is underway, things are looking up.
As President Biden calls for more support to help schools hold in-person classes, public health experts say schools can be relatively safe if they take well-known steps to prevent covid. But a KHN investigation shows many districts and states have ignored health advice or written their own questionable safety rules for schools.
Hospitals dealing with staff shortages during the current covid surge are unable to tap into one valuable resource: foreign-trained doctors, nurses and other health workers, many with experience treating infectious diseases. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Nevada are the only states to have eased credentialing requirements during the pandemic.
Black Americans are receiving covid vaccines at a much lower rate than their white peers due to a combination of mistrust and access issues, leaving them behind in the mission to vaccinate the nation’s population.
After spending tens of millions of dollars to oppose past efforts, Altria didn’t oppose Colorado’s tobacco tax initiative and could benefit from the law’s minimum-price provision.
The oxygen delivery infrastructure is crumbling under pressure in Los Angeles and other covid hot spots, jeopardizing patients’ access to precious air and limiting hospital turnover.
A Colorado woman formed an adventure group to encourage other Black women to enjoy the outdoors, and now it has chapters across the U.S. and Canada. Yet many Black adventure seekers say they often face racism when partaking in healthy outdoor activities.
As long as humans encroach on nature, pandemics are inevitable — making it important to concentrate resources in areas where people and wildlife are linked.
In some parts of the country, the surge in covid cases is overwhelming coroners, morgues, funeral homes and religious leaders. It has required ingenuity and even changed the rituals of honoring the dead.
In a fracas between a largely rural county and neighboring cities, class and politics are just as relevant as the coronavirus. People are getting “stupid and mean,” as one mayor put it.
It typically takes years of persuasion to change habits in the name of health safety. Local officials who are stuck with the responsibility of enforcing statewide pandemic-related mandates are trying to transform behavior fast.
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