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There鈥檚 less time, less attention and fewer resources this year, but that isn鈥檛 stopping lawmakers from acting on controversial health care legislation not directly related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Hundreds of thousands of essential workers have kept their kids in day care during the pandemic out of necessity and, so far, these centers haven鈥檛 been big disease spreaders. But the evidence remains incomplete.
Health plans offered through Covered California, the health insurance exchange, will increase premiums by a statewide average of 0.6% next year. Health insurers reported strong profits in the second quarter of 2020 as their expenses plunged because of fewer surgeries and patient visits for non-COVID treatment.
Richard Costigan, a well-respected fixture in state Capitol circles, has detailed his family鈥檚 ongoing experiences with COVID-19 on social media after catching the virus 鈥 he surmises 鈥 at a backyard gathering. The former Schwarzenegger aide wants people to know this virus doesn鈥檛 care who you are.
Americans are avoiding hospitals and clinics by the millions, even when they shouldn鈥檛, and many experts expect a jump in preventable disease diagnoses after the COVID crisis eases. Paradoxically, the pandemic may have been good for some heart patients, however.
Early in the pandemic, insurers expected the costs of treating COVID-19 would vastly increase medical spending. Instead, non-COVID care has plummeted and insurers have pocketed the result. Still, few industry observers are predicting broad-based premium cuts in 2021, though some health plans have proposed lowering their rates.
Will Lightbourne, the new director of the California Department of Health Care Services, says government must address the racial disparities laid bare by COVID-19 and improve care for the state鈥檚 most vulnerable residents.
Newly released employment data underscores the lingering toll the pandemic has taken on a range of outpatient services in California and across the U.S., from pediatric and family medical practices to dental offices, medical labs and home health care.
While Congress negotiates liability protection for reopening businesses as part of its latest pandemic bailout package, some employers are already requiring workers to sign waivers agreeing not to sue if they get COVID-19 on the job.
Newsletter editor Lauren Olsen wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don鈥檛 have to.
With COVID-19 tests bogged down in backlogs, some states that relied on private laboratories, such as Quest Diagnostics, are trying to adapt as caseloads rise.
State officials had projected that 2 million Californians would join Medi-Cal, the state鈥檚 health insurance program for low-income people, by July because of the economic devastation wrought by COVID-19. Yet enrollment has barely budged, and why is unclear.
Check out KHN鈥檚 video series 鈥 Behind The Byline: How the Story Got Made. Come along as journalists and producers offer an insider鈥檚 view of health care coverage that does not quit.
The pandemic has given the National Institutes of Health an opportunity to show the value of its $1.5 billion 鈥淎ll of Us鈥 research program. A major effort to make the platform鈥檚 database representative of America resulted in minorities making up more than half of its more than 270,000 volunteers.
Although younger people are hospitalized and die less frequently than their elders when infected with COVID-19, their cases are harder to trace. As a result, the virus is spreading uncontrollably throughout much of Southern California. Even hospital staffs are affected by community spread.
Some districts want to bring everyone back to the classroom and some are planning distance-only learning, while most others are settling on one of a variety of options in the middle. Whatever their leanings, they all face vast, troubling uncertainty.
Even as most U.S. states and authorities reimpose many of the restrictions they had prematurely lifted, public health experts say you can still have a safe social life 鈥 just not the one you were used to before the pandemic hit.
Unlike earlier in the year, most hospitals are not proactively canceling elective surgeries, even in some places seeing spikes in coronavirus patients.
Executions have been on hold in California since 2006, stalled by a series of legal challenges. But COVID-19 is proving a lethal presence on San Quentin鈥檚 death row.
Public health authorities had hoped digital technology would supplement the work of contact tracers seeking to control the spread of COVID-19. But technical uncertainties and public health failures have dimmed the apps鈥 potential.
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