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The covid pandemic drove major changes to Montana health policies, including the permanent expansion of telehealth regulations, a pullback on local public health officials’ authority and the easing of vaccination requirements for workers and students.
Before the pandemic, Colorado was building momentum to pass what’s known as a “public option” health plan that would lower insurance premiums and force hospitals to accept lower payments. But now with hospitals and health care providers enjoying support as front-line heroes in the pandemic, state legislators have stripped the option from their bill.
BNSF Railway accuses the Center for Asbestos Related Disease of Medicare fraud by misdiagnosing and overtreating asbestos-caused illnesses, which the health clinic calls a cynical attempt by the company to limit its own liability.
It’s unclear whether “red flag” laws — which allow the seizure of guns from a person deemed dangerous — help prevent mass shootings or should have been applied to the suspects in recent shootings in Boulder, Colorado, and Indianapolis.
Of the three covid vaccines the U.S. government has authorized, only one is available to 16- and 17-year-olds: the Pfizer shot. It’s also the most complicated to manage in rural settings, with their small, dispersed populations. That forces some teens and their families to travel long distances for a dose — or go without.
Health providers are seeing the consequences of pandemic-delayed preventive and emergency care, from longer hospital stays to more root canals.
Congress has poured tens of billions of dollars into public health since last year. While health officials who have juggled bare-bones budgets for years are grateful for the money, they worry it will soon dry up, just as it has after previous crises such as 9/11, SARS and Ebola. Meanwhile, they continue to cope with an exodus from the field amid political pressure and exhaustion that meant 1 in 6 Americans lost their local health department leader.
For some, a vaccine appointment a few hours away is no biggie. For others, it’s a major barrier to gaining protection from the coronavirus.
As athletes at all levels resume their sports, what risks do their hearts carry if they’ve had covid? Initial data shows the risk may be low but still possibly deadly.
Montana’s overstretched counties and tribal governments have developed a mishmash of policies and plans that require ingenuity and mutual support to work. A reporting project by KHN, Montana Free Press and the University of Montana School of Journalism finds the biggest test of that disparate system looms as vaccine eligibility expands. Plus: a county-by-county guide to vaccine availability in Montana.
The city of Durango has hired an actor to bring his Old West acting skills to tackle a current problem: the Wild West of spring break, in which visitors from states such as Texas and Oklahoma flock to town. The “lawman” cajoles them into wearing masks while vaccinators stand ready for out-of-town visitors.
Access to physician-assisted death is expanding across the U.S., but the procedure remains in Montana’s legal gray zone more than a decade after the state Supreme Court ruled physicians could use a dying patient’s consent as a defense.
Clinicians at pediatric hospitals are experimenting with “smell training” among children who had covid-19 and have now lost this sense.
Montana is looking to join most other states in requiring small businesses to offer laid-off employees temporary continuity of their health care plans. But the bill, if it passes, likely won’t take effect in time to help people directly affected by the pandemic.
Hunger among kids is skyrocketing, even in America’s wealthiest counties. But given the nation’s highly uneven charitable food system, affluent communities have been far less ready for the unprecedented crisis than places accustomed to dealing with poverty and hardship.
With schools opening up classrooms, millions of young athletes are also getting out on fields and courts. But pandemic precautions and delays are spurring conflicts among parents, coaches and doctors.
Health provider conflicts, fraud and access disparity temper the covid telehealth revolution.
The Aldaco family of Phoenix suffered more than most in this year of unfathomable losses. Three brothers perished in the pandemic: Jose in July, Heriberto in December and Gonzalo in February.
Hesitancy toward routine childhood vaccines doesn’t necessarily predict hesitancy toward a covid shot.
Experts say the two-year expansion of subsidies for most people who buy insurance through the government exchanges would be among the most significant changes to the affordability of private insurance since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
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