Hospitals and doctors, who tend to benefit from the current system, fought to defeat solutions that would lower their pay. Insurance companies and large insurers groups, on the other hand, have wanted a stronger ability to negotiate lower payments to the types of medical providers who can currently send patients surprise bills. Legislation nearly passed…
A working group of the committee suggested that in addition to teachers, firefighters and police, “frontline essential workers” should include school support staff, day care employees, corrections personnel, public transit, grocery store and postal workers, and those in working in food production and manufacturing. But the group’s formal recommendation is not that specific. The panel,…
The pop star Ariana Grande is engaged to the luxury real estate agent Dalton Gomez, she announced on Instagram on Sunday. Sharing photos of herself with Mr. Gomez (and a diamond and pearl ring), she captioned her post, “forever n then some.” Ms. Grande had hinted at her relationship with Mr. Gomez over the past…
The incoming administration, he said, is exploring ways to take over the distribution of testing supplies and medical gear. They are also seeking to create financial incentives and “buy American” policies to boost the handful of domestic companies that make P.P.E., he said. Mr. Biden would not hesitate to embrace the Defense Production Act, Dr.…
Just as vaccines begin to offer hope for a path out of the pandemic, officials in Britain on Saturday sounded an urgent alarm about what they called a highly contagious new variant of the coronavirus circulating in England. Citing the rapid spread of the virus through London and surrounding areas, Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed…
KABUL, Afghanistan — For Mohammad Wakil, 23, social distancing is an abstract concept. Every working day, he shakes hands with scores of customers at the teeming bazaar where he sells secondhand shoes. He handles filthy Afghan bank notes. He disdains hand sanitizer. A mask? Forget about it. “There’s no coronavirus,” Mr. Wakil said in late…
She noted, however, that game theory assumes people are rational in their decision-making. Fear can suppress vaccination “to precarious levels insufficient to prevent the spread of an outbreak,” she said. Covid-19 Vaccines › Answers to Your Vaccine Questions With distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you…
In the grand pantheon of salad dressings, French dressing can be easily forgotten — a sticky, sweet, carrot-colored blend overshadowed by America’s undisputed heavyweight champion of dressings, ranch. But the federal government has shown great interest in the humble dressing, painstakingly regulating since 1950 the ingredients that it must contain and revising the rules at…
Indeed, the niceties of the simplest pedestrian civilities can overwhelm the more cautious among us. And when we aren’t putting feet in mouths, we’re putting others on the spot by asking them if they’ve been tested and to open their windows to let air in. At a dinner last month at a friend’s house on…
Older adults about to undergo elective surgery should undertake a sustained programme of targeted exercise beforehand to counteract the muscle-wasting effects of bedrest, new research suggests. A study published by researchers in the University of Birmingham’s School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences showed that short term ‘prehabilitation’ strength exercises, undertaken pre-surgery, are insufficient to…