The Biden administration is quietly engineering a series of expansions to Medicaid that may bolster protections for millions of low-income Americans and bring more people into the program. Biden’s efforts — which have been largely overshadowed by other economic and health initiatives — represent an abrupt reversal of the Trump…
Pandemic Swells Medicaid Enrollment to 80 Million People
The pandemic-caused recession and a federal requirement that states keep Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled until the national emergency ends swelled the pool of people in the program by more than 9 million over the past year, according to a report released Thursday. The latest figures show Medicaid enrollment grew from 71.3…
Lab Director Blames Hospital for Fertility Clinic Failure
Three years after a malfunctioning storage tank destroyed thousands of frozen eggs and embryos at an Ohio fertility clinic, its former lab director is blaming what he described as bungling staff and administrators who ignored his warnings. The claims made for the first time in legal filings this month have…
Viral Thoughts: Why COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Persist
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Daniel Roberts hadn’t had a vaccination since he was 6. No boosters, no tetanus shots. His parents taught him inoculations were dangerous, and when the coronavirus arrived, they called it a hoax. The vaccine, they said, was the real threat. So when the 29-year-old Tennessee man…
House OKs $1.9 Trillion COVID Relief Package
Billions of dollars to expand the fight against the coronavirus are included in the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package approved early Saturday morning in the U.S. House of Representatives. President Joe Biden urged quick action on the “the American Rescue Plan,” which now heads to the Senate. “We have no…
Feds OK’d Export of N95 Masks as US Workers Cried for More
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. In the midst of a national shortage of N95 masks, the U.S. government quietly granted an exception to its export ban on protective gear, allowing as many as 5 million of the masks per month to…