Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
Every state and Washington D.C. have eased or lifted at least one social distancing requirement — including 32 states that have eased or lifted stay-at-home orders. From May 21 to May 28, restaurants reopened to dine-in service in 4 more states, and 4 more states eased or lifted their gatherings ban. Between May 28 to June 4, seven more states allowed restaurants to reopen to dine-in service.
This tracker provides the number of cases and deaths from novel coronavirus by country, the trend in case and death counts by country, and a global map of showing which countries have cases and deaths. There have been over 7.2 million confirmed cases and 411,000 confirmed deaths worldwide. There have been nearly 2 million confirmed cases and 112,000 confirmed deaths in the United States.
This brief reviews what we know about the impact of provider consolidation on health care prices and quality and finds that consolidation leads to higher prices with no compelling evidence of commensurate quality improvements.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to renewed interest among policymakers, the media, residents, and their families in nursing home regulation and oversight, as residents and staff are at increased risk of infection due to the highly transmissible nature of the coronavirus, the congregate nature of facility settings, and the close contact that many workers have with patients. This issue brief answers key questions about nursing home oversight under Medicare and Medicaid and explains how federal policy has changed in light of COVID-19.
In this Axios column, Drew Altman looks at how the heroic performance of the nation’s doctors on the frontlines of coronavirus care and effective communication by many physician scientists on television, is shifting the public’s views, with twice as many Americans now saying doctors put people ahead of profits than they did in earlier KFF polling.
This brief survey examines how the public views the motivations of doctors, nurses, insurance companies, and drug companies when it comes to making profits vs. working for the public good. It updates a question asked in 2005 to measure how views have changed over time.
Quick-hitting policy analysis, polling, and updates on the key issues facing the country in 2020.
In response to COVID-19, all 50 states + DC are using emergency waivers and other authorities to make changes to their Medicaid programs. Check out details of these Medicaid emergency authorities on our tracker.
This data note quantifies the availability of providers capable of providing critical care in each state relative to state-level population. It finds that the number of intensivist physicians is substantially smaller than that of “second-line” providers that sometimes provide critical care, such as hospitalists, pulmonologists, and anesthesiologists, lending credence to longstanding concerns that intensivists are in short supply in the U.S. at baseline.
With schools nationwide preparing for fall and the federal government encouraging in-person classes, key concerns for school officials, teachers and parents include the risks that coronavirus poses to children and their role in transmission of the disease. A new KFF brief examines the latest available data and evidence about the issues…