KHN

The pandemic and economic crisis give states new incentives to extend health coverage to their uninsured residents.

Industry experts say it’s highly unlikely that dozens of pharmaceutical companies that aren’t already producing covid vaccines stand ready to do so.

A strike team of nurses and others is vaccinating Contra Costa County’s hardest-hit populations right where they live.

Tens of thousands of middle-aged sons and daughters — too young to qualify for a vaccine — care for older relatives with serious ailments and want to get the shots to protect their loved ones and themselves.

On Monday, the federal insurance exchange reopened for an unusual midyear special enrollment period. People who are uninsured can buy a plan, and those who want to change their marketplace coverage can do so. Here are some answers about how it works.

While South Dakota is excelling in vaccine distribution and in keeping its economy intact, some health measures show the state is also dealing with one of the highest per capita covid death rates in the country.

Authorities seized 1.7 million fake masks in New York and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell called for a national probe.

A video on the social media platform TikTok explains how consumers can “crush” their hospital bills using charity care policies. This won’t work for all medical bills, but it might be a good place to start.

Techies and startups have thrown together vaccine appointment websites to address the chaotic rollout of covid shots. But software can’t replace vaccines, and for many people the sites are just another piece of the vaccination “Hunger Games.”

Even while the Senate is busy with Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, the House has gotten down to work on a covid relief bill using the budget reconciliation process. Meanwhile, the watchword for covid this week among the public is confusion — over masks, vaccines and just about everything else science-related. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, the panelists recommend their favorite “health policy valentines” along with their favorite health policy stories they think you should read, too.

Community health clinics are key to getting more Black and Hispanic Americans vaccinated, federal officials say. In Nashville, a vaccination push at federally funded clinics is underway.

The measures would impose taxes on increases in the price of drugs that don’t reflect improved clinical value and set the rates paid by state-run and commercial health plans to a benchmark based on prices in Canada.

Masks imitating the real thing are flooding U.S. ports, and authorities can hardly keep pace.

Lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing bills to restrict transgender kids from participating in sports and ban doctors from treating them.

Congressman Steve Scalise claimed during a Fox News interview that President Joe Biden was allowing immigrants to “jump the line” ahead of Americans for vaccination. But the administration merely has said everyone should have access to the vaccine, regardless of immigration status, and get vaccinated when eligible.

Tribes across the U.S. have turned to social media and the internet as leaders worry about covid-19’s threat to their culture and elders.

Reaching people who may have been in contact with covid patients has helped cut the number of infections, but these tracing efforts become less effective as the number of cases grows.

Concerns arising in western North Carolina provide a window into the challenges facing health workers across the country as they seek to persuade vulnerable populations to be inoculated against covid.

Hospitals across the country are seeing rising admissions for alcoholic liver disease, which encompasses hepatitis, cirrhosis and other conditions.