Category: NPR

Ten years ago, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. Kaiser Health News reporter Julie Rovner speaks with NPR’s Ari Shapiro about its impact and how COVID-19 may affect it.

“You must increase your capacity by 50%,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo tells hospitals in his state. “You must. Mandatory directive from the state. Find more beds, use more rooms.”

“We don’t want Dallas or New Orleans or Chicago to turn into the next New York,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Monday morning.

About half of U.S. rural hospitals operate in the red on a good day. Now facing a pandemic, hospital CEOs warn that, without federal help, their doors may close when the community most needs them.

The wave of critical patients is expected to arrive first at Seattle-area hospitals, which have spent recent weeks trying to shore up supplies of “staff and stuff.” No one is sure they have enough.

Some state exchanges have begun allowing new enrollment to help ease consumers’ worry about health care costs. It’s also so the uninsured won’t inadvertently spread the coronavirus by avoiding care.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is taking what he calls “the ultimate step” in his state’s effort to stop the spread of a deadly coronavirus.

Fifteen percent of hospital pharmacists who prepare injectable drugs are going without the the protective masks they typically rely on, or are using substitutes for the masks.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the nation’s largest health care system. Critics say the coronavirus will overwhelm it, but VA secretary Robert Wilkie says his department is ready.

The Secretary for Veterans Affairs just spoke with NPR. Here’s how to interpret his comments around coronavirus readiness.