A proposal in Washington state would use right-to-try laws to allow terminally ill patients access to psilocybin — the famed magic mushrooms of America’s psychedelic ’60s — to ease depression and anxiety.
Category: Kaiser Health News
Medicare Open Enrollment Is Complicated. Here’s How to Get Good Advice.
It’s a complex program with many options — as well as confusing rules and nuances. Here’s how to get reliable guidance.
Need a COVID-19 Nurse? That’ll Be $8,000 a Week
A shortage of nurses has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need. That threatens to shift the supply of nurses toward more affluent areas.
California Law Banning Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics Will Transform Industry
The law will ban the manufacture and sale in California of personal care products that contain 24 toxics, including asbestos, formaldehyde and lead, and is expected to fill a gap in federal regulation as companies sell the new formulations nationwide.
Parents Complain That Pediatricians, Wary of COVID, Shift Sick Kids to Urgent Care
Referrals of children to urgent care clinics or emergency rooms have become so prevalent that the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with interim guidance on how practices can safely continue to see patients. The academy recommended that pediatricians strive “to provide care for the same variety of visits that they provided prior to the public health emergency.”
Were You Notified About Missing Tax Forms for Your ACA Subsidy? Blame COVID.
Some consumers who received tax credits to purchase insurance from Affordable Care Act marketplaces report they’ve received letters in error from the government saying they didn’t file the IRS forms to account for how much money they made and how much funding they received from the government.
What Biden Can Do to Combat COVID Right Now
Although President-elect Joe Biden is free to meet with people who will be vital to carry out his administration’s fight against COVID, he and his transition team are blocked from conferring with federal officials because the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge Biden won the election. That could have a critical impact on Biden’s efforts to help fight the coronavirus.
Surging LA
Eight months after California Healthline’s Heidi de Marco photographed LA under lockdown, she returned to the same iconic spots. Vehicle and foot traffic are up — as are coronavirus cases.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Transition Troubles Mount as COVID Spreads
COVID-19 is spreading rapidly around the U.S. even before Thanksgiving promises to accelerate the trend. There are two promising vaccine candidates, but because President Donald Trump still refuses to concede the election and is holding up the official transition, President-Elect Joe Biden and his team cannot access plans for distributing those vaccines. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
Trump’s Lame-Duck Status Leaves Governors to Wing It on COVID
As coronavirus cases surge, state officials can’t afford to wait for a new president to take office before taking action. But some governors’ initiatives seem to be little more than policy tweaks or symbolic gestures.
