The availability of covid testing and turnaround times for results still vary widely around the country, some 19 months since the pandemic was declared a national crisis. A jumbled testing system, technician burnout and squirrely spikes in demand are all part of the problem.
California Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, who authored legislation to create and fund the state’s new 988 phone line for mental health emergencies, spoke with KHN about the effort and what more will be needed to create a full-fledged response network for people experiencing mental health crises.
Hundreds of towns, cities and states across the U.S. have ignored part of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and now it’s costing them billions of dollars to comply.
Federally qualified health centers from California to Michigan are mired in a bureaucratic mess over how they should be paid under Medicaid for each dose of covid vaccine given. In California alone, clinics await reimbursement for at least 1 million shots, causing a “massive cash flow problem.”
Health care workers already bore the brunt of workplace violence in the U.S. Now, tensions from an exhausting pandemic are spilling over into hospitals.
At issue is whether transplant patients who refuse the shots are not only putting themselves at greater risk for serious illness and death from covid-19, but also squandering scarce organs that could benefit others.
Following a February KHN investigation into covid vaccine accessibility, the Department of Justice reached an agreement with five New York government agencies to make their websites accessible to people who are visually impaired.
As scientists argue whether a previous bout of covid offers the same amount of protection as vaccinations, people turn to the courts to decide.
The American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress in March, provides $130 billion to cities, counties and tribes — with few restrictions on how the money can be spent.
In Maryland, it’s now illegal for a hospital to sue a patient who qualifies for charity care. But in many other states, that’s still a thing.
