For Nurses Feeling the Strain of the Pandemic, Virus Resurgence Is 鈥楶aralyzing鈥
COVID-19鈥檚 toll weighs heavily on nurses, who can suffer stress and other psychological problems if they don鈥檛 believe they are able to help their patients sufficiently.
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New Legal Push Aims to Speed Magic Mushrooms to Dying Patients
A proposal in Washington state would use right-to-try laws to allow terminally ill patients access to psilocybin 鈥 the famed magic mushrooms of America鈥檚 psychedelic 鈥60s 鈥 to ease depression and anxiety.
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Medicare Open Enrollment Is Complicated. Here鈥檚 How to Get Good Advice.
It鈥檚 a complex program with many options 鈥 as well as confusing rules and nuances. Here鈥檚 how to get reliable guidance.
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Need a COVID-19 Nurse? That鈥檒l Be $8,000 a Week
A shortage of nurses has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need. That threatens to shift the supply of nurses toward more affluent areas.
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California Law Banning Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics Will Transform Industry
The law will ban the manufacture and sale in California of personal care products that contain 24 toxics, including asbestos, formaldehyde and lead, and is expected to fill a gap in federal regulation as companies sell the new formulations nationwide.
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Parents Complain That Pediatricians, Wary of COVID, Shift Sick Kids to Urgent Care
Referrals of children to urgent care clinics or emergency rooms have become so prevalent that the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with interim guidance on how practices can safely continue to see patients. The academy recommended that pediatricians strive “to provide care for the same variety of visits that they provided prior to the public health emergency.”
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Were You Notified About Missing Tax Forms for Your ACA Subsidy? Blame COVID.
Some consumers who received tax credits to purchase insurance from Affordable Care Act marketplaces report they鈥檝e received letters in error from the government saying they didn鈥檛 file the IRS forms to account for how much money they made and how much funding they received from the government.
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Surging LA
Eight months after California Healthline鈥檚 Heidi de Marco photographed LA under lockdown, she returned to the same iconic spots. Vehicle and foot traffic are up 鈥 as are coronavirus cases.
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What Biden Can Do to Combat COVID Right Now
Although President-elect Joe Biden is free to meet with people who will be vital to carry out his administration鈥檚 fight against COVID, he and his transition team are blocked from conferring with federal officials because the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge Biden won the election. That could have a critical impact on Biden’s efforts to help fight the coronavirus.
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KHN鈥檚 鈥榃hat the Health?鈥: Transition Troubles Mount as COVID Spreads
COVID-19 is spreading rapidly around the U.S. even before Thanksgiving promises to accelerate the trend. There are two promising vaccine candidates, but because President Donald Trump still refuses to concede the election and is holding up the official transition, President-Elect Joe Biden and his team cannot access plans for distributing those vaccines. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN鈥檚 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.
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Trump鈥檚 Lame-Duck Status Leaves Governors to Wing It on COVID
As coronavirus cases surge, state officials can鈥檛 afford to wait for a new president to take office before taking action. But some governors鈥 initiatives seem to be little more than policy tweaks or symbolic gestures.
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KHN on the Air This Week
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here鈥檚 a collection of their appearances.
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Fear of Flying Is a COVID-Era Conundrum
As coronavirus cases take off across the U.S., airlines promote holiday deals and encourage travel. But are flyers throwing caution to the wind?
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Florida鈥檚 New Hospital Industry Head Ran Medicaid in State and Fought Expansion
The state鈥檚 hospital association in September picked Mary Mayhew to be its new CEO. While leading the state Medicaid office, she was a vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act鈥檚 Medicaid expansion program.
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These Front-Line Workers Could Have Retired. They Risked Their Lives Instead.
An investigation by KHN and The Guardian shows that 329 health care workers age 65 or older have reportedly died of COVID-19.
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Take It From an Expert: Fauci鈥檚 Hierarchy of Safety During COVID
In a new interview, the nation’s top infectious disease expert tells us how to survive the coming months and describes how hard it is when people still insist the coronavirus outbreak is 鈥渇ake news.鈥
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KHN鈥檚 鈥榃hat the Health?鈥: What Would Dr. Fauci Do?
Anthony Fauci is one of the nation’s most trusted voices during public health emergencies. As the head of the National Institutes of Health鈥檚 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, Fauci has helped guide the nation through the HIV/AIDS epidemic and more recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika. In this special episode of KHN鈥檚 鈥淲hat the Health?鈥 podcast, Fauci sits down with KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal to talk about how to navigate the next phase of the coronavirus pandemic and what the incoming Biden administration should do first.
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Family Mourns Man With Mental Illness Killed by Police and Calls for Change
Like almost a quarter of the 989 people killed by police in the U.S. in the past 12 months, Ricardo Mu帽oz had a serious mental illness. “Instead of a cop just being there, there should have been other responders,” his sister says.
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People Proving to Be Weakest Link for Apps Tracking COVID Exposure
Contact tracers in many states are stretched thin. Colorado is among the latest states to launch an app that aims to help, based on the COVID contact-tracing tool built by Apple and Google. But there鈥檚 a chicken-and-egg problem: More people will use them if they prove to work, but the apps become effective only if more people use them.
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States鈥 Face-Covering Mandates Leave Gaps in Protection
States vary in how they define face coverings in their mandates. But a bandanna or neck gaiter isn’t nearly as effective as a surgical or cloth mask. Public health experts say every state needs more standardization to protect against COVID-19.
