by Katheryn Houghton LIVINGSTON, Mont. — Shannan Piccolo walked into a hotel with a tote bag full of Narcan and a speech about how easy it is to use the medicine that can reverse opioid overdoses. “Hopefully your business would never have to respond to an overdose, but we’d rather have you have some Narcan…
By Judith Graham/Kaiser Health News Eight months after falling ill with COVID-19, the 73-year-old woman couldn’t remember what her husband had told her a few hours before. She would forget to remove laundry from the dryer at the end of the cycle. She would turn on the tap at a sink and walk away. Before…
By Sam Whitehead and Arthur Allen/Kaiser Health News Gwyneth Paige didn’t want to get vaccinated against covid-19 at first. With her health issues — hypertension, fibromyalgia, asthma — she wanted to see how other people fared after the shots. Then her mother got colon cancer. “At that point, I didn’t care if the vaccine killed…
Four years ago, when Karen Giuliano went to a Boston hospital for hip replacement surgery, she was given a pale-pink bucket of toiletries issued to patients in many hospitals. Inside were tissues, bar soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and, without a doubt, the worst toothbrush she’d ever seen. “I couldn’t believe it. I got a toothbrush with…
By Michelle Andrews/Kaiser Health News Andy Stone is one of the lucky ones. The New York City resident saw a tweet from a local AIDS activist saying that monkeypox vaccines would be available that day at a clinic in Manhattan. Stone, 35, and his husband booked appointments online right away and got their shots last month….
By Victoria Knight/Kaiser Health News The gun safety law forged through tense bipartisan talks in the Senate last month has been heralded as the first federal legislation in 30 years to combat rising gun violence. But what often falls below the radar is the new law’s focus on improving mental health services. News coverage has…
By Victoria Knight, Rachana Pradhan, Julie Rovner The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization dramatically and rapidly alters the landscape of abortion access in the U.S. The court on June 24 ruled 6-3 to uphold a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but also to overturn the…
By Julie Rovner/Kaiser Health News The Supreme Court on Friday, June 24 formally overturned its 49-year-old landmark Roe v. Wade decision, and with it ended a half-century of constitutionally guaranteed abortion rights in the United States. The 6-3 decision in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was telegraphed in May by an unprecedented…
By Judith Graham/ KHN ALMOST half of older adults — more than 26 million people 65 and older — have prediabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How concerned should they be? Not very, say some experts. Prediabetes — a term that refers to above-normal but not extremely high blood sugar levels…
A FEW months ago, it seemed as though the country was poised to finally tame the pandemic, after two years of restrictions and tens of billions in government spending. The Biden administration in March released the first national COVID-19 preparedness plan to help Americans safely “return to normal,” a strategy to live with the continued…
Jessica Oberoi, 13, can’t exactly remember when her eyesight started getting blurry. All she knows is that she had to squint to see the whiteboard at school. It wasn’t until last fall when her eighth grade class in Bloomington, Indiana, got vision screenings that Jessica’s extreme nearsightedness and amblyopia, or lazy eye, were discovered. She’s…
Older adults who have survived COVID-19 are more likely than younger patients to have persistent symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness, muscle aches, heart palpitations, headaches, joint pain, and difficulty with memory and concentration — problems linked to long COVID. But it can be hard to distinguish lingering aftereffects of COVID from conditions common in older…
By Samantha Young/Kaiser Health News SACRAMENTO — When Johanna Trenerry found a nursing home for her husband after his stroke, she expected his stay would be temporary. He never came home. Arthur Trenerry died at Windsor Redding Care Center in Northern California in October 2020. The 82-year-old great-grandfather is among more than 9,900 California nursing home…
Even as top U.S. health officials say it’s time America learns to live with the coronavirus, a chorus of leading researchers say faulty messaging on booster shots has left millions of older people at serious risk. Approximately 1 in 3 Americans 65 and older who completed their initial vaccination round still have not received a first booster…
TWO years into the coronavirus pandemic, Americans can be forgiven if they’ve lost track of the latest variants circulating nationally and around the world. We’ve heard of the alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and omicron variants, but a new Greek-letter variant hasn’t come onto the scene in almost half a year. Instead, a seemingly endless stream…
By Heidi de Marco/Kaiser Health News LOS ANGELES — Nurse Angel Ho-king sways her head to the sound of salsa music as she waits for people willing to roll up their sleeves to get a shot. Ho-king is part of a four-person crew staffing a covid-19 vaccine table at a health fair in Rampart Village,…
By Bram Sable-Smith and Rachana Pradhan/Kaiser Health News Korra Elliott has tried to avoid seeing a doctor while waiting to get on Medicaid. She worries she can’t afford more bills without any insurance coverage. But in early March — five months, she said, after applying and with still no decision about her application — a suspected case of…
WHEN the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month unveiled updated COVID-19 guidelines that relaxed masking recommendations, some people no doubt sighed in relief and thought it was about time. People have become increasingly comfortable being out shopping, attending live events, or meeting up with friends at restaurants. And many are ready to cast…
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Gov. Gavin Newsom took office in 2019, he promised to lower prescription drug costs for all Californians. But now, as Newsom nears the end of his first term, his ambitious ideas — such as requiring California to make its own insulin and forging drug partnerships across state lines — have failed…
PRESIDENT Joe Biden’s top Medicare official suggested Wednesday, March 2 that forthcoming rules to bolster nursing home staffing won’t be issued under a mechanism, known as interim final rules, that would allow regulations to take effect more or less immediately. “While we want to move swiftly, we want to get comments from stakeholders,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure,…
YES, we are all exhausted by the covid pandemic. Flummoxed by the constantly shifting science and guidelines. Worried about a succession of scary new variants, each with its own name, like hurricanes. But a sizable minority — nearly 17 million U.S. residents, including me — has its own special quandary. Our initial vaccine was Johnson…
By Rachana Pradhan/Kaiser Health News The Biden administration and state officials are bracing for a great unwinding: millions of people losing their Medicaid benefits when the pandemic health emergency ends. Some might sign up for different insurance. Many others are bound to get lost in the transition. State Medicaid agencies for months have been preparing…
By Rae Ellen Bichell WHAT does it mean if a person’s rapid antigen test result comes back positive after five days of isolation due to COVID-19? According to the experts, that person is most likely still carrying a viral load high enough to infect others. “Anytime you’re positive by one of these rapid at-home COVID…
By Michelle Andrews/Kaiser Health News WHAT group is especially vulnerable to the ravages of COVID-19 even if fully vaccinated and boosted? Seniors. And who will have an especially tough time getting free at-home COVID tests under the Biden administration’s plan? Yes, seniors. As of Jan. 15, private insurers will cover the cost of eight at-home…
By Damon Darlin/Kaiser Health News AMERICANS keep hearing that it is important to test frequently for COVID-19 at home. But just try to find an “at-home” rapid COVID test in a store and at a price that makes frequent tests affordable. Testing, as well as mask-wearing, is an important measure if the country ever hopes…
NEW YORK — In recent months, mobile covid-19 testing tents and vans have sprouted on urban sidewalks and street curbs as demand has skyrocketed in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant. Some of the sites run by private companies offer legitimate, timely and reliable results, but others are more like weeds. High…
By Nick Ehli/Kaiser Health News BILLINGS, Mont. — Before Mary Venus was offered a nursing job at a hospital here, she’d never heard of Billings or visited the United States. A native of the Philippines, she researched her prospective move via the internet, set aside her angst about the cold Montana winters and took the…
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Californians go to the polls later this year, they will confront contentious health care choices. Voters will weigh whether to overturn a state law that bans flavored tobacco products and will likely consider increasing the cap on medical malpractice awards. They may also vote on proposals that effectively legalize psychedelic mushrooms…
NURSES and health care workers across the country are finding strength in numbers and with labor actions not seen in years. In California, which has a strong union tradition, Kaiser Permanente management misjudged workplace tensions during the covid-19 crisis and risked a walkout of thousands when union nurses balked at signing a four-year contract that…
ON March 31, 1977, as a measles epidemic swept through Los Angeles, the county health department issued an ultimatum to the parents of the county’s 1.6 million schoolchildren: Get your kids vaccinated within a month or keep them home. The “no shots, no school” warning was a novel threat at the time. Since the 1920s…
