KHN

People who put off care as COVID-19 surged are easing back into the medical system. Here’s how to know if it’s safe.

Health care workers on the front lines of the COVID crisis have spent exhausting months working and self-quarantining off-duty to keep from infecting others, including their families. Encountering people who indignantly refuse face coverings can feel like a slap in the face.

A rule finalized this spring by the Trump administration permits employers and insurers not to apply drug company copayment assistance toward enrollees’ deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for any drug.

Skip the numbers. Focus on the mask.

The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources necessary to confront the worst health crisis in a century. An investigation by The Associated Press and KHN has found that since 2010, spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and for local health departments by 18%. At least 38,000 public health jobs have disappeared, leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world’s top public health systems. That has left the nation unprepared to deal with a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million people and killed more than 126,000.

To assess the state of the public health system in the United States, KHN and The Associated Press analyzed data on government spending and staffing at national, state and local levels. Here’s what data we used and how we did it.

KHN and The Associated Press sought to understand how decades of cuts to public health departments by federal, state and local governments has affected the system meant to protect the nation’s health. Here are six key takeaways from the KHN-AP investigation.

In an investigation last year, KHN detailed the rise and fall of Miami businessman Jorge A. Perez’s rural hospital empire, which spanned eight states and encompassed half of the rural hospital bankruptcies in 2019.

For Art Ballard, the local gym was like his second home. The 91-year-old former jeweler relied on his near-daily workouts to stay healthy and for social interaction. But when California instituted its stay-at-home order, Ballard’s physical health suffered. So did his mental health.

As health workers were dying of COVID-19, federal work-safety officials filed just one citation against an employer and rapidly closed complaints about protective gear.

The National Cancer Institute plans to launch a multisite study next year involving roughly 5,000 women to assess whether self-sampling at home for the human papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer is comparable to screening in a doctor’s office.