Overnight Health Care: Senate Budget Agreement to Provide New Funding for Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare | Over 2 Million People Register During ObamaCare’s Special Registration Period | US drug overdose death toll hits record

Welcome to Wednesday night health care. Another change to the Tokyo Olympics, the medal ceremonies will feature winning athletes who their own medals around the neck to prevent transmission of COVID-19.

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Today: To the top of 2 million people signed up for ObamaCare coverage, the Senate budget deal would fund a slew of health care priorities, and drug overdose deaths in the United States have reached a record high.

Let’s start with the budget:

There’s a lot of health care in the new Senate budget deal, from Medicare to Medicaid to ObamaCare. But a lot has to be worked on.

The $ 3.5 trillion budget deal reached by Senate Democrats will include funding for a range of major health care priorities, from expanding Medicare and Medicaid to expanding enhanced grants to ‘ObamaCare.

The proposal will also be funded in part by lower prescription drug prices, according to a senior Democratic official.

A long way to go: While the budget sets the general parameters, the details of the proposals have yet to be worked out by lawmakers before a final package, which will use the legislative process known as reconciliation to avoid GOP obstruction. The content could also change as legislation is developed.

Major provisions:

Read more here.

Over 2 million people register during ObamaCare’s special registration period

Administration officials announced Wednesday that more than 2 million people have purchased health insurance during the special enrollment period using both the federal and state markets.

The new registrations have pushed the number of Affordable Care Act (ACA) registrants to an all-time high, although Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said the final number of registrations were not yet available.

“When you make coverage affordable, when you make it easier for people to sign up, they will,” said Brooks-LaSure.

In numbers : A total of 1.5 million Americans signed up for coverage through Healthcare.gov throughout the special enrollment period, while another 600,000 used the 15 state-based marketplaces, the ministry said. of Health and Human Services (HHS).

At the same time, a record 81 million people received coverage by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in February.

Throughout the ongoing special registration period that the Biden administration opened on February 15 and is scheduled to end on August 15, healthcare registrations have increased, having been open for weeks.

Read more here.

In the United States, the number of drug overdose deaths hit a record 93,000 last year

In the United States, drug overdose deaths hit a new record high of over 93,000 last year as the opioid epidemic continued during the pandemic.

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention documented 93,331 overdose deaths in 2020, a jump of almost 30% from the previous year.

Opioid overdoses accounted for the bulk of the deaths, at around 69,000. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, was responsible for much of the crisis.

Background: The surge in drug overdose deaths represents a setback after the number of overdose deaths edged down in 2018 for the first time in decades. The increase came amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased isolation and stretched and redirected healthcare resources to combat the virus.

A bankruptcy plan for Purdue Pharma, a company at the center of the opioid crisis, has the potential to provide additional funds to combat the crisis. Fifteen States Last week agreed to a $ 4.5 billion settlement agreement.

Read more here.

Anti-vaccines gain strength on the right, triggering new fears

Public health experts are increasingly concerned about the rise in anti-vaccination rhetoric among elected officials and the right-wing media as a new wave of coronavirus infections begins to sweep over Americans who have not. still been vaccinated.

Lawmakers in more than 40 states have introduced measures to ban vaccine passports, and many Republican governors have signed Executive orders or laws prohibiting their use.

In some cases, Republican governors and lawmakers are now repeating far-right talking points questioning the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines developed over the past year are among the safest and most effective ever. .

Public health experts were particularly alarmed earlier this week when Tennessee The Ministry of Health sacked Michelle Fiscus, the state’s top vaccine official, after the state legislature raised concerns over public health guidelines it issued for teens seeking the coronavirus vaccine .

” It’s shocking. It’s not shocking that we have a fringe group that is anti-vaccine. This has been true since the first vaccine, ”said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It is shocking to me that people who represent the public and the health and welfare of the public are choosing to take this dramatic anti-science stance.”

Read more here.

Initial hospital costs for gun injuries exceed $ 1 billion per year: GAO report

The cost of initial treatment of gun-related injuries in hospitals exceeds $ 1 billion per year, with public health coverage accounting for the bulk of the bill, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

GAO report published wednesday found that hospitals documented approximately 30,000 inpatient stays and approximately 50,000 emergency department visits for initial treatment of firearm injuries per year, according to the most recent hospital data from 2016 and 2017.

But data from the Agency for Research and Quality in Health Care did not include costs for doctors, which the office said could add about 20% to the $ 1 billion total.

Read more here.

What we read

The delta variant widens the gap between the “two Americas”: vaccinated and unvaccinated (The New York Times)

What is the $% &! going to the FDA? (The New Republic)

Tragic death shows how emergencies fail in drug addiction patients (NPR)

State by State

Red state, blue state, twin epidemic: behind the anomalous Covid peaks of Wyoming and Colorado (Kaiser Santé news)

Botched surgeries and deaths: How the California Medical Board keeps negligent physicians in business (Los Angeles Times)

5 Charleston hospital workers sacked after refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 (State)