January 21, 2021 7:00 AM By Zachary Sherwood and Brandon Lee
Joe Biden is seeking to wipe away Donald Trumpâs fingerprints from U.S. policy, but his predecessor left lasting partisan divisions in Washington that pose a risk to getting the new presidentâs agenda through Congress.
While Biden pleaded for unity in his inaugural address âthe most elusive of all things in a democracy,â he allowed his top policy priorities including coronavirus relief were already running into headwinds.
Several GOP senators led by Mitt Romney (Utah) expressed misgivings about his $1.9 trillion plan for addressing the pandemicâs damage to the economy. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who voted for Trumpâs impeachment last week, faulted Bidenâs first-day flurry of executive actions. More Republicans dismissed his proposed immigration overhaul as an âamnestyâ for people who unlawfully entered the country.
January 15, 2021 6:09 AM By Brandon Lee
President-elect Joe Biden outlined plans for a $20 billion national vaccination program to speed up the pace of Covid-19 immunizations, calling the effort so far âa dismal failureâ in an address last night.
âWeâll have to move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated, to create more places for them to get vaccinated, to mobilize more medical teams to get shots in peopleâs arms, to increase vaccine supply, and to get it out the door as fast as possible,â Biden said.
Biden said he would lay out plans today to âcorrect courseâ and meet the goal for distributing 100 million shots in his administrationâs first 100 days.
January 6, 2021 6:06 AM By Brandon Lee
Itâs the most massive vaccine rollout in the nationâs history, but many local governments are consigning patient appointments to web-based services better known for handling birthday-party RSVPs and online yoga sessions.
Several Florida counties have deployed Eventbrite. Some governments in Oklahoma dabbled with SignUpGenius and one county in New Jersey was still using the service. Elsewhere, some seekers of the Covid-19 vaccine reported hours-long holds on appointment hotlinesâonly to be disconnectedâor logging on to websites that lock them out.
âSigning up to get a Covid vaccine is like trying to get a Beatles ticket,â said Jacob Saur, public safety director in Floridaâs Manatee County, where demand for the shot crashed the web sign-up sheet he had set up.
Listen • 31:52
The pandemic was the dominant but not the only health policy story of 2020. In this Kaiser Health News podcast, panelists look at some of the year s biggest non-coronavirus stories.
COVID-19 was the dominant but not the only health policy story of 2020.
In this special year-in-review episode of Kaiser Health News “What the Health?” podcast, panelists look back at some of the biggest non-coronavirus stories. Those included Supreme Court cases on the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid work requirements and abortion, as well as a year-end surprise ending to the “surprise bill” saga.
Panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Sarah Karlin-Smith of Pink Sheet.