Latest Morning Briefing Stories

Primary Care Doctors Look at Payment Overhaul After Pandemic Disruption

KFF Health News Original

Many physicians were forced to close their offices — or at least see only emergency cases — when the pandemic struck. Because they are generally paid piecemeal for every service, they suffered big losses, leading to layoffs and pay cuts. Some doctors say they now are looking to overhaul the way they get paid.

Nurses and Doctors Sick With COVID Feel Pressured to Get Back to Work

KFF Health News Original

Hospital employees say they must choose between their paychecks and their health or that of their families. Returning to work with symptoms also risks infection among the patients they are meant to heal.

Public Health Officials Are Quitting or Getting Fired in Throes of Pandemic

KFF Health News Original

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.

Lost on the Frontline

KFF Health News Original

“Lost on the Frontline” is an ongoing project by Kaiser Health News and The Guardian that aims to document the lives of health care workers in the U.S. who died from COVID 19, and to investigate why so many are victims of the disease.

In Rural Missouri, Latinos Learn to Contain and Cope With the Coronavirus

KFF Health News Original

In a town in the southwestern corner of Missouri, where COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Latino immigrants, language barriers and economic pressures among factory workers have stymied efforts to slow the virus that causes the disease.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Still Waiting for That Trump Health Plan

KFF Health News Original

President Donald Trump keeps promising a comprehensive plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. And he keeps not delivering. Meanwhile, members of Congress and White House officials seem unable to agree on a new COVID-19 relief bill. And Missouri becomes the sixth state where voters approved a Medicaid expansion ballot measure. Tami Luhby of CNN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health stories of the week they think you should read, too.

America’s Obesity Epidemic Threatens Effectiveness of Any COVID Vaccine

KFF Health News Original

Vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies are less effective for obese people, leaving them more vulnerable to serious illness. As scientists race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, experts say obesity could prove an impediment — a sobering prospect for a nation in which nearly half of all adults are obese.