Seat belts. Cigarette taxes. Public health investment.
Some lawmakers chose to back these policies. Others don’t.
Those choices along red and blue lines are shaving years off American lives.
w/
@ddiamond
@dtkeating
I'm beyond thrilled to announce I’m joining the
@washingtonpost
, where I'll do my best to hold the forces behind health disinformation to account
That's where you all come in: Let me know where I should be digging in all the crevices of health care
So for those with diabetes or other chronic medical conditions, the resulting mass panic buying spree has threatened their usual medical routines, such as when patients use an alcohol swab or a rubbing alcohol-soaked cotton ball to disinfect their skin before they inject insulin.
🧵The day after his 8-month-old baby died, Kingsley Raspe opened the mail and found he had been sent to collections for her care.
It was a paltry sum, $26.50 — absurd really, given he’d been told he owed $2.5 million
My latest
@KHNews
@NPR
This is the story of how a Miami entrepreneur and his business associates amassed a rural hospital empire -- and drove it into the ground, devastating towns across the country. Communities lost more than life-saving medical care and hundreds of good jobs.
🚨🚨🚨 Amid the pandemic, at least 27 state and local public health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired across 13 states, due in part to a mix of backlash and stressful, nonstop working conditions.
W/
@annabarryjester
@MRSmithAP
@AP
@KHNews
Did you know your insurer can tell you something is covered, and then after you have surgery say they’re not going to pay for it?
And yes, it’s legal.
Welcome to American health care in 2020.
My latest
@KHNews
for
@USATODAY
:
In the next pandemic, North Dakota can't make residents wear masks.
Ohio health officials can't shutter businesses.
The president can't force a vaccine or test mandate.
Inside the 3 year culmination of public health handcuffing w/
@JoelAchenbach
🚨 Rural Americans are dying of covid at more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts — a divide that is likely to widen.
"We’ve turned many rural communities into kill boxes,"
@Amorganrural
@NRHA_Advocacy
said
My latest for
@KHNews
@NBCNews
Some personal news: I'm thrilled to be joining
@KHNews
to cover how America's health care system is working--and not working--for the Midwest. Hit me up at LaurenW
@kff
.org with any and all tips on what you think is getting missed, and get in touch next time you're in St. Louis!
The U.S. has starved state and local public health departments of funding for decades, leaving the country ill-equipped for
#COVID19
, our
@KHNews
@AP
investigation found.
This is America's public health system in a pandemic.
#UnderfundedUnderThreat
NEW: While everyone else hunts for toilet paper, Caroline Gregory and others with diabetes have been forced on their own mission amid
#COVID19
: scouring stores for the rubbing alcohol or alcohol swabs needed to manage the disease.
@KHNews
@USATODAY
SCOOP: Admiral Tim Ziemer is leaving the
@WhiteHouse
amid a reshuffle of the NSC. So the Global Health Security head is leaving the same day an Ebola outbreak in the DRC is announced -- my latest
“We’re all supposed to be staying at home, and I’m out going to 10 different stores,” the 33-year-old Gregory told me late in March. “That’s also not safe.”
🚨Across the US, health insurers and health care systems are breaking disability rights laws by sending inaccessible medical bills and notices, our
@KHNews
investigation found
It effectively creates a disability tax on time and finances
W/
@hannah_recht
INVESTIGATION: Covid vaccination registration websites at the federal, state and local levels violate disability rights laws, hindering the ability of blind people to sign up for lifesaving vaccine.
Even
@CDCgov
's embattled VAMS system is inaccessible.
Was reminded yesterday by a source that Doctors Without Borders is working within the U.S. to fight
#COVID19
, and that's pretty much all you need to know to tell you that the pandemic is showing the gaping cracks in America's health care system.
We need to talk about
@AmbJohnBolton
and Ebola.
In case you forgot, we're currently amidst the second-largest Ebola outbreak of all time. Over 2,000 dead so far. No sign of it stopping anytime soon.
The National Security Council had a head of global health security in 2018...
So there's a lot of news going on right now, but something that's continuing to get lost in the noise is the Ebola outbreak happening in a WAR ZONE along with the election turmoil in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Buckle in for my thread.
Meet the trio of conservative legal blocs that has rolled back public health authority at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America's ability to fight infectious disease.
My latest
@KHNews
investigation w/
@annabarryjester
@NPR
Our latest
@KHNews
@AP
#UnderfundedUnderThreat
found:
🚨At least 16 states have limited the power of public health officials
🚨At least 17 states limited vaccine rules
🚨At least 9 states banned or limited mask mandates
W/ the fabulous
@annabarryjester
More Medicaid expansion momentum out of Missouri:
Organizers announced today that they have half of the signatures needed to put Missouri Medicaid expansion on the ballot, which would expand coverage for up to 200,000 people
This follows the big news out of Kansas last week 👇
Big news out of Kansas: Medicaid expansion agreement reached between Democratic Gov.
@LauraKellyKS
and the Senate Majority Leader standing in her way.
For background on the fight, my look at why it matters nationally this summer.
My latest: “This is such a damn shitshow,” the union president told HuffPost, saying staff, inmates and detainees are all unsafe due to the staffing shortage and disease outbreaks. “This could have been prevented.”
1 in 8 Americans lives in a community that lost a local public health leader, our
@AP
@KHNews
investigation found
Lawmakers in 24 states are crafting legislation to strip public health powers
This is U.S. pandemic public health
#UnderfundedUnderThreat
A tragic milestone today: The Ebola outbreak in DRC has officially become the second largest in history with 426 cases, surpassing the 2000 Uganda outbreak with 425 cases. This is what Ebola looks like in a war zone. My latest on the crisis:
This is why it's not just a pandemic of the "unvaccinated" -- hospitals being overwhelmed affects every single person facing any kind of medical emergency, regardless if they're vaccinated or not.
I’m an Arkansas ER physician. We are at the point warned about a year ago. There are no ICU beds in the state. 4 days ago we called 5 surrounding states looking for ICU beds and we were unsuccessful. (Thread)
Rubbing alcohol and alcohol wipes have become the latest victim to the overwhelming demand for anything and everything seen as a disinfectant against the novel coronavirus across the United States — leaving diabetics behind.
Until Bolton's NSC eliminated that office THE DAY AFTER the current Ebola outbreak was announced.
That followed the departure of White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert -- another champion of investment in global health security -- THE DAY AFTER Bolton joined the WH.
This is 2018 in America: We're handing out human poop bags as public health infrastructure has rotted so completely that vaccine-preventable hepatitis A is exploding nationwide. My investigation:
NEW from me: I talked to rural hospital CEOs around the country, and the picture is dire.
Right when Americans most need them, droves of rural hospitals are weeks from closing their doors as the coronavirus prep saps their cash.
@NPR
@KHNews
🚨 Is your child in a classroom with “unproven” air cleaner technology?
Our investigation found over 2,000 schools across 44 states are using your taxpayer dollars to buy the tech.
Middlemen are making big money along the way.
w/
@By_CJewett
@KHNews
🚨🚨🚨 Black Americans are receiving covid vaccinations at dramatically lower rates than white Americans, according to our new
@KHNews
data analysis on the rollout
“We are missing the boat on equity”
@MarcusPlescia
@ASTHO
said
From
@hannah_recht
and me:
Private equity groups are scooping up eye care physician practices nationwide as money-making opportunities grow as the U.S. population ages.
And as billions pour into the space, costs are going up.
My latest for
@KHNews
@FortuneMagazine
Across the country, doctors who jeopardized patients’ lives by pushing covid medical misinformation have faced few repercussions, according to my
@bylenasun
&
@byHayden
's investigation of disciplinary records from medical boards in all 50 states.
Step inside the Missouri war against public health with me, and learn how the ongoing stripping of public health powers is diminishing the nation's ability to fight the next pandemic.
A 🧵 for
@KHNews
@CNN
“Don’t hoard something that you don’t really need,” added
@Glassylady
, a mother of a teenager with diabetes. “Because the people who really need it, can’t get it.”
“Oh, no, honey, only hookers get syphilis,” one rural Missouri doctor told a patient.
Welcome to the world of increased stigma, funding cuts, and a rise in drug use that is contributing to the explosion of rural syphilis (and my first
@KHNews
piece).
At One World Trade Center in NYC, I learned only 4 people will be allowed in an elevator at a time.
So for the 8,000 people who normally work
@OneWTC
to get up to their offices, there will be 2,000 elevator trips.
So much for smoothly back to work amid
#COVID19
.
NEW: Cutting the number of people getting in the elevator at a time to accommodate social distancing means the lobbies in front of elevator bays become the next high-risk chokepoint. Welcome to the elevator conundrum, writes
@LaurenWeberHP
.
Today is my first year anniversary at
@washingtonpost
!
Still can't believe I get to work on this health team with the best in the business
So proud of the work I've done so far on the medical misinformation/disinformation beat and excited for what's ahead
Keep the tips coming
Chiropractors in 10 states earn continuing education credits for attending anti-vax conferences.
"They have touted their supplements as alternatives to vaccines, written doctor’s notes to allow patients to get out of mask and immunization mandates."
A number of vocal and influential chiropractors are sowing fear and mistrust about vaccines, and have supercharged their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic,
@sbauerAP
@mikecatalini
and I found:
“This will come back to haunt America,”
@LawrenceGostin
said.
"We will rue the day where we have other public health emergencies, and we’re simply unable to act decisively and rapidly.”
NEW: The PPE battles are far from over.
Nursing homes, small physician offices and rural clinics are being left behind in the rush for N95 masks and PPE while larger, wealthier health care facilities build equipment stockpiles.
My latest for
@KHNews
Workers out sick in droves.
Patients' conditions being exacerbated by Omicron.
Add the threat of in-hospital transmission.
There’s a reason hospitals are telling people to stay away from the ER -
@jeremyfaust
W/
@philgalewitz
@gahealthnews
@KHNews
NEW: The nasopharyngeal swabs required for
#Covid_19
tests are quite different than your standard Q-tips — and the exploding need for them has created a bottleneck in the soaring demand for diagnoses 1/
My latest for
@KHNews
w/
@By_CJewett
Who leads the NSC matters, not just for decisions on North Korea or Iran, but for pandemic security.
As
@BillGates
like to say, "There is a significant probability of a large and lethal, modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes."
Hope we're ready.
The bills lived on for them, as they do for many other families of premature and very sick infants who don’t survive.
“What a lasting tribute to the entire experience,” Kingsley said angrily. “The process was just so heartless.”
SCOOP: Conditions continue to worsen at Victorville federal prison, where 1,000 detainees were sent. One has attempted suicide, another is on suicide watch. “You’re going to get more suicide attempts and suicides. We just can’t take care of them."
THREAD: Medicare Advantage is the health care Silicon Valley gold rush right now. Big tech is pouring BIG money into these plans. Little known fact though: Medicare Advantage plans overbill the government by nearly $10 BILLION a year.
I'm beyond honored to see our
#UnderfundedUnderThreat
@AP
@KHNews
project, which chronicles how public health has been starved of funding for decades leaving current staff without the resources to tackle the pandemic, receive the
@AAASKavli
Gold Award.
The U.S. is in the midst of several hepatitis A outbreaks -- which have killed at least 48 people and infected thousands -- and case counts are up 85% this year alone. But you probably haven't heard about it. 1/6
Missourians have driven hours to find vaccines in rural counties. Doses are still slowly being rolled out in a federal long-term care program. Black residents are getting left behind.
Here's what went wrong in Missouri's vaccine rollout.
#moleg
@KHNews
My
@washingtonpost
latest dives deep into tax records:
Four major nonprofits that rose to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic by capitalizing on the spread of medical misinformation collectively gained more than $118 million between 2020 and 2022
More than 300,000 U.S. families have infants who require advanced medical attention in newborn intensive care units every year.
Some babies stay for months, quickly generating astronomical fees for highly specialized surgeries and round-the-clock care.
One of my first
@KHNews
stories was a deep dive on Jorge Perez, the man responsible for half of 2019's rural hospital closures.
@barbfederostrov
and I told how he left communities shattered.
Monday, he was convicted of $1.4 billion health care fraud.
“Hospitals are wiping down everything all the time — with every type of viricide that they have at their disposal,” one manufacturer told me. “I’m making it as fast as I can, but I have more orders than I have capacity to manufacture.”
“Profiting from bunk and nonsense has no place in ethical medicine,” said
@ArthurCaplan
, who called the FLCCC Alliance’s promotion of ivermectin for covid, flu and RSV “fraud during a pandemic on a significant scale.”
My first dig
@washingtonpost
🚨 Rural mortality rates from
#COVID19
have been worse than urban mortality rates since AUGUST.
Step inside a rural Louisiana hospital with me, which one of their doctors describes as a "war situation," to find out why:
🚨🚨🚨 This is what it looks like inside a rural hospital when
#COVID19
hits:
Staff are infected, inpatient numbers have doubled and intubations have skyrocketed -- and are there enough ventilators?
My heartbreaking latest for
@guardian
@KHNews
The Biden administration awarded $2.25 billion to fight covid health disparities and help limit the spread of covid-19 among those most at risk
A year later,
@philgalewitz
@sclaudwhitehead
and I found very little of the money has been spent yet
@KHNews
Some good news: Despite the harassment and low pay public health professionals are seeing across the U.S. that we've been chronicling for
@AP
@KHNews
,
@MRSmithAP
and Kathy Young found public health programs are seeing a SURGE of students amid
#COVID19
Isopropyl alcohol has been touted as a cleaner that kills coronavirus, for everything from your kitchen countertop to your phone. With the depletion of the supply of hand sanitizer, which is seen as a defense against
#COVID19
, demand has exploded to make it at home.
As
@hannah_recht
and I found:
🚨 In at least 7 states, blind residents were unable to register for the vaccine without help
🚨 94 covid info and vaccine pages from the states had accessibility issues
@webaim
found
🚨 Phone alternatives were not available or had too long of lines
Pretty exciting to see my byline on the front page of
@washingtonpost
this morning with
@FenitN
— give our piece a read to understand the latest covid variant news on XBB.1.5
For context, that June, we had six outbreaks of the most concerning kind happening at the SAME TIME. Outbreak preparedness is more vital now than ever.
A surge in patients. Violent rebel assaults. Mob attacks against health workers. Money running out. My latest details what the DRC Ebola outbreak has been like on the ground, as it enters its worst phase since it began in July,
@CDCgov
told me 1/13
Raspe and his wife, Maddie, had endured watching doctors crack open the chest of their pigtailed daughter, Sterling, whom they called “sweet Sterly gurl.” The health team performed so many other procedures.
But it couldn’t keep her — or her parents’ dreams for her — alive.
As
@rachanadixit
@LizSzabo
and I reported Friday, the White House's testing strategy is not sufficient without proper mask wearing and social distancing.
And delayed positives like this are sadly bound to happen -- the virus incubates.
Big news out of Kansas: Medicaid expansion agreement reached between Democratic Gov.
@LauraKellyKS
and the Senate Majority Leader standing in her way.
For background on the fight, my look at why it matters nationally this summer.
🚨🚨🚨 Tens of millions of antigen tests for
#COVID19
are hitting the U.S., but 20+ states don’t report all their results — leaving Americans in the dark about the pandemic,
@rachanadixit
@hannah_recht
and I found.
Welcome to a
#COVID19
blind spot:
“One day we’re going to have a really bad global crisis and a pandemic far worse than covid, and we’ll look to the government to protect us, but it’ll have its hands behind its back and a blindfold on,” said
@LawrenceGostin
.
“We’ll die with our rights on.”
The DRC Ebola outbreak is only getting worse. The threat of more violence is omnipresent, the U.S. is not heading back to the epicenter, and two-thirds of contacts are unknown, the CDC tells me. My latest report on a dangerous time in this Ebola outbreak:
🚨As covid-19 raged, roughly 4,000 public health workers were hired by
@CDCFound
to plug the holes at battered local and state public health departments on the front lines.
But over the last few months, the money has run out.
My latest
@CNN
@KHNews
ADVERSARIAL VIEW:
@MichaelJMorell
tells us Russia and China are viewing the violence on Capitol as "a significant opportunity" and will use these events to show their people this is what democracy does and this is what the US is trying to bring to the rest of the world
This is a story about what happens when breastfeeding rates go up. A win for public health, but a loss for formula companies. So what do they do? They start marketing what the
@WHO
and experts call unnecessary -- toddler formula
Conservative and libertarian forces have defanged much of the nation’s public health system through legislation and litigation as the world staggers into the fourth year of covid.
We found at least 30 states have passed laws limiting public health authority so far.
All told, public health experts say, the covid-era litigation has altered not just the government response to this pandemic, but also endangered the fundamental tools that public health workers have utilized for decades.
At Drumright Regional Hospital in Oklahoma, HR Director Allyson Lunsford said they ran out of oxygen and blood. By December, she said, they were so far behind on bills that the company that rented them hospital beds came to repossess them — despite patients still using them.
The services are delivered, and in U.S. health care, billing follows.
But for the smaller fraction of families whose children die, the burden can be too much to bear.
@hnorms
with the video:
“My daughter passed away. I’m not unscathed, but I’m not in financial ruin. The same can’t be said for every family,” he said.
“How lucky am I? I went through the worst thing imaginable, and I consider myself lucky — what kind of weird, messed-up logic is that?”
Glad to see
@Yamiche
ask
@realDonaldTrump
about the disbanding of the White House team in charge of pandemic response directly.
I broke that story back in 2018 -- and much of what I wrote then has played out in the coronavirus crisis we have today. 1/
Video of my question to
@realDonaldTrump
today on his administration's disbanding of the White House team responsible for coordinating responses to pandemics.
He called my question nasty & said he knew nothing about it.
I call it a relevant, fair, and truth-seeking question.
BREAKING: NYPD confirmed to me that former CDC director
@DrFrieden
has been arrested and charged with forcible touching, sexual abuse and harassment after allegedly touching a woman's buttocks in his residence last October
Bennett died last July after doctors said his lungs could not fight anymore.
The Markows spent their bereavement leave battling with insurers and other billing agencies.
Jorge A. Perez said he was out to save rural hospitals. It was his “secret sauce,” Perez would smilingly tell people in their no-stoplight towns. The money-making ventures he proposed sounded complicated, sure, but he said they would bring in enough cash to save their hospital.
What would you do to save your child from a deadly genetic disease? I followed Amber Olsen, a "fighter mom" from Mississippi, for the past year as she sacrificed everything in pursuit of a gene therapy
Crissa estimates she spent six to eight hours a week dealing with medical bills to keep them from being sent to collections — which still happened.
She was also charged over $71,000 for an out-of-network emergency plane ride for Bennett -- more than she makes in a year.
Got choked up getting my covid vaccine today — truly wonderful to see everyone here getting this protection.
Big thanks to the many people saving lives, from those who developed this vaccine to the folks volunteering here.
As the hospital in Reno, Nevada, was converting a parking garage into a covid-19 unit in November 2020, Bennett Markow came into the world four months early. He weighed less than a pound.
His care team loved to sing “Bennie and the Jets” to him as a nod to his jet ventilator.
Although Crissa was used to working toward solutions as a social worker, the billing quagmires she found herself in while juggling Bennett’s care, her job, her other son, and the travel logistics to stay with Bennett about 2½ hours away from her home were overwhelming.
Tisha Coleman, a public health administrator in rural Linn County, KS, has been pleading for a mask mandate.
People in town called her a sheep.
Commissioners said no, twice.
1 in 24 residents tested positive for
#COVID19
.
Her mother died Sunday after time on a ventilator.