Author: Scott Welch
Medi-Cal, the state’s safety net health program, isn’t free for everyone. More than half a million of California’s lowest-income children, pregnant individuals and working disabled adults are required to pay health insurance premiums, ranging from $13 a month to as much as $350. That may change this year under two proposals being floated in Sacramento. ...
As some of the biggest U.S. employers lift mask mandates for vaccinated workers, other companies are going even further and discarding requirements that employees get their COVID-19 shots. Germany’s Adidas told its U.S. workers on Monday that it would no longer require they get vaccinated against the virus. “Though no longer required, we strongly encourage all employees to ...
Lawmakers aren’t eager to spend big — again — on a pandemic many would just as soon declare over. President Joe Biden’s cabinet members and public health experts say they are running out of money to battle Covid-19 and need tens of billions more dollars to continue vaccination, testing and medicine distribution efforts at home ...
Average daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are continuing to fall in the U.S., an indicator that the omicron variant’s hold is weakening across the country. Total confirmed cases reported Saturday barely exceeded 100,000, a sharp downturn from around 800,850 five weeks ago on Jan. 16, according to Johns Hopkins University data. In New York, the ...
The number of kids covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program has soared to a record 40 million during the pandemic, aided by a congressional provision that bars states from disenrolling them during the public health emergency. However, at least 6.7 million children are at risk of losing that coverage and going uninsured for a period ...
Several major payer groups and Medicaid advocates are pressing Congress for a 120-day heads up when the COVID-19 public health emergency ends, arguing they need as much time as possible to make Medicaid enrollees aware they could lose coverage. A collection of payer and Medicaid state advocacy groups wrote to congressional leadership on Thursday asking ...
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are “very carefully” considering second booster doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, according to The Wall Street Journal. FDA spokesperson Alison Hunt confirmed to CNN that the FDA “is indeed continually looking at the emerging data on the pandemic and variants in the United States and overseas in order to evaluate the potential utility and composition ...
On February 17th, 2022, Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced S. 3673. This bipartisan bill will provide much-needed relief for employers seeking to comply with the reporting requirements under Section 6055 and 6056 for enforcement of the ACA's individual and employer mandates.
Clark County on Thursday reported 489 new coronavirus cases and 33 deaths, as Gov. Steve Sisolak rescinded the statewide mask mandate in the face of declining case counts.
Upon analyzing the 10 drugs that amounted to the highest Medicare Part B spend from 2018-2020—and were purchased, stored and administered in a healthcare setting—an AHIP study published Wednesday found that drug treatments given in hospitals were marked up an average of $7,000, when compared to those purchased through specialty pharmacies.