With older adults vaccinated, doctors say a growing share of their covid patients are in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, as more contagious variants circulate among people who remain unvaccinated.
Category: Hospitals
What a Difference a Year Makes in Colorado’s Case for a Public Option Plan
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.
Pandemic Imperiled Non-English Speakers More Than Others
Covid patients who did not speak English well were 35% more likely to die, data from one Boston hospital shows.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Picking Up the Pace of Undoing Trump Policies
The Biden administration has started to speed efforts to reverse health policies forged under Donald Trump. Most recently, the administration overturned a ban on fetal tissue research and canceled a last-minute extension of a Medicaid waiver for Texas. That latter move may delay the Senate confirmation of President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Medicare and Medicaid programs, as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) seeks to fight back. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Rachel Cohrs of Stat and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico 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.
UVA Health Will Wipe Out Tens of Thousands of Lawsuits Against Patients
The Virginia hospital giant had already stopped suing patients with less than $107,000 in household income.
A Year Into Pandemic, Federal Officials Design New Mask Guidelines to Better Protect More Workers
Changes would allow N95 sales for industries other than healthcare and signal an end to the hospital practice of reusing the masks considered essential for worker safety.
Orange County Hospital Seeks Divorce From Large Catholic Health System
Frustration with the standardization of care across 51 hospitals, loss of local control and restrictions on reproductive health care have pitted Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian against the Providence chain.
Covid Spawns ‘Completely New Category’ of Organ Transplants
Nearly 60 organ transplants have been performed after the coronavirus “basically destroyed” patients’ hearts and lungs.
Analysis: Hospital Price Transparency Data Lacks Standardization, Limiting Its Use to Insurers, Employers, and Consumers
In spite of a new price transparency rule that requires hospitals to publish the prices of common health services, comparing prices across hospitals remains challenging due to limited compliance with the law and a lack of standardization in the availab…
Early Results from Federal Price Transparency Rule Show Difficultly in Estimating the Cost of Care
A new issue brief examines compliance with a new federal price transparency rule and variation in payer-negotiated rates at U.S. hospitals. The analysis looks at the websites of the two largest hospitals in each state and the District of Columbia, and …
