Category: Vaccines

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Much Ado About Drug Prices

Democrats have hit a snag in their effort to compile a $3.5 trillion social-spending bill this fall — moderates are resisting support for Medicare drug price negotiation provisions that would pay for many of the measure’s health benefit improvements. Meanwhile, the new abortion restrictions in Texas have moved the divisive issue back to the political front burner. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interview’s KHN’s Phil Galewitz about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment, about two similar jaw surgeries with very different price tags.

The Changing Costs of Covid Care

In this commentary for Barron’s, Cynthia Cox explores the impact to the American public as the U.S. health insurance system adjusts to the COVID-19 pandemic. She uses the experience of the past year and a half to raise questions about broader issues of…

How Fauci and the NIH Got Ahead of the FDA and CDC in Backing Boosters

With real-time data streaming in from highly specialized researchers in the U.S. and abroad, NIH scientists became convinced that boosting the covid-19 vaccine was needed to save lives, prompting the president to announce a plan with a Sept. 20 start date. Scientists at the regulatory agencies weren’t yet convinced. A meeting Friday will determine what happens next. Here’s the story from behind the scenes.

When Covid Deaths Are Dismissed or Stigmatized, Grief Is Mixed With Shame and Anger

After their brother died, two sisters faced a barrage of misinformation, pandemic denialism and blaming questions. Grief experts say that makes covid-19 the newest kind of “disenfranchising death.”

Biden Releases a New Plan to Combat Covid, but Experts Say There’s Still a Ways to Go

There’s agreement that the plan includes important action items but also elements that will trigger political opposition.

Preventable Costs of Unvaccinated COVID-19 Patients Rise Sharply in August as Hospitalizations Surge

A surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations among people who have not been vaccinated in August is adding billions of dollars in preventable costs to the nation’s health-care system, an updated KFF analysis finds. In August, the new analysis estimates that th…

ICUs Are Filled With Covid — And Regret

Unvaccinated people are filling intensive care beds and dying of covid in record numbers in Tennessee and other Southern states. Many tell their nurses and doctors they regret the decision not to get the vaccine when they could.

Even in Red States, Colleges Gravitate to Requiring Vaccines and Masks

As students return to campus, schools across the country are taking steps to enforce public health advice to keep people safe from covid. In deeply conservative South Carolina when elected officials tried to stop that, a professor took on the establishment and won.

The Pandemic Almost Killed Allie. Her Community’s Vaccination Rate Is 45%.

As the delta variant overtakes Mississippi and other undervaccinated parts of the country, one 13-year-old girl’s experience with covid and MIS-C shows a community’s reluctance to embrace public health precautions and continued vulnerability to the pandemic.

V-Safe: How Everyday People Help the CDC Track Covid Vaccine Safety With Their Phones

V-safe is a new safety monitoring system that lets anyone who has been vaccinated against covid-19 report possible side effects directly to federal health officials. Experts believe the smartphone tool has so far helped demonstrate the vaccines are safe.