The COVID-19 national emergency has formally come to an end after President Joe Biden signed legislation that passed in the House in January along party lines and was sponsored by Arizona Republican Representative Paul Gosar.
At the end of last month, the Senate also passed the measure 68-23 with nearly two dozen Democrats supporting...
This week, Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a number of Republican-supported bills, including measures that would redefine the beginning of life under the Arizona Constitution. Also, a newly revised striker bill would limit public health emergencies to seven days.
On Monday, Gov. Hobbs vetoed four bills including HB 2427, which would add...
On Monday, the Biden administration announced that it would end the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration. The announcement came as the U.S. House of Representatives passed two bills that would curb federal authority in pandemic response. In Arizona, legislators are pushing bills that would ban schools from requiring...
The federal government is taking action to challenge restrictions on birth control and abortion this week with a new rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Also, the Biden administration is reportedly weighing a declaration of a public health emergency...
Arizona cases of COVID-19 are spiking again, heralding the long-awaited winter surge warned of by experts and epidemiologists. But vaccine uptake, especially of the new bivalent booster, remains low as experts cite "vaccine fatigue" among Americans.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero has tested positive for COVID-19 and experiencing mild...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has signaled that it will delay the end of the public health emergency (PHE) related to the COVID-19 pandemic until April, quelling fears from stakeholders that not enough time was given to review Medicaid eligibility for everyone enrolled since the pandemic began.
In Arizona,...
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are signaling that the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) is near.
Last week, CMS published a blog post called "Creating a Roadmap for the End of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency," to help providers prepare for the end of the waivers and flexibilities that arrived...
With more than 7,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox across the country, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra announced a public health emergency (PHE) for the monkeypox epidemic. The PHE declaration may help to streamline vaccination efforts, but stockpiles of vaccine are low and a drug that could...
Even more counties in Arizona are seeing elevated community transmission levels of COVID-19 this week, and the surge is now having an impact on local hospitals. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has renewed the public health emergency.
Last week, there were 18,135 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 across Arizona and 66...
With cases of COVID-19 back on the rise in Arizona and across the country, epidemiologists and experts are asking if yet another Omicron surge looms on the horizon.
In Arizona, nearly 5,500 new cases were recorded over the past week. There were 41 new deaths related to COVID-19 in Arizona, bringing the state total to 30,320. These...
Arizona may still have a chance to extend the time frame of postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to one year after birth. The bill, SB 1272, passed the Arizona Senate and the House Health and Human Services Appropriations Committees with nearly unanimous support.
However, the bill has stalled while the Legislature negotiates the...
As Arizona approaches the two-year mark from Governor Doug Ducey's March 30, 2020 executive order mandating the closure of certain businesses and a stay-at-home advisory for all Arizonans, the Arizona Republic reflects on what has happened in those two years of the public health emergency. Following three major surges of COVID-19 in just...
The Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) annual report released this week, titled “Ready or Not: Protecting the Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters and Bioterrorism” not only assesses each state using key performance metrics but urges post-pandemic America to focus on the underlying drivers of economic and health inequities....
Calls for an end to the formal declaration of public health emergency (PHE) related to the COVID-19 pandemic are gaining traction in the lull following the surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths related to the Omicron variant. Nursing homes are only just now required to demonstrate full vaccination of all staff members, and...
The public health emergency (PHE) related to the COVID-19 pandemic is currently slated to expire on April 15, but is expected to be renewed for an additional 90 days. State Medicaid programs are concerned that they will not be granted enough time to complete Medicaid enrollee redeterminations, which have been paused for the duration of...National News
Despite the national decline in cases of COVID-19, President Joe Biden moved to reauthorize the U.S. national emergency declared in March 2020. The president said that the deaths of more than 900,000 Americans emphasized the need for the federal government's continued response to the pandemic.
According to Reuters, the emergency is...Arizona News
As another deadline approaches for the Public Health Emergency's (PHE) expiration, millions of Medicaid beneficiaries, including 500,000 in Arizona, remain covered without scrutiny regarding eligibility status. Once the federal government declares the PHE over, the great Medicaid unwinding begins and state officials will face the...
Arizona officially has the distinction of ranking second nationally for COVID deaths per capita, currently trailing Mississippi. The state has now surpassed 26,000 COVID-19 deaths and is averaging nearly 14,000 new cases per day. On Wednesday, there were 24 new COVID-19 related deaths and 8,329 new cases reported.
This information...
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a new report with heartening results on a study of 1.2 million fully vaccinated adults in which only 327 were hospitalized and 36 died due to COVID-19.
The CDC study involved patients seen at 465 healthcare facilities across the U.S. from December 2020 to...National News
The federal public health emergency (PHE) due to the COVID-19 pandemic is set to expire on January 16, 2022. Previously, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra extended the PHE during its prior three expirations under the Biden administration, but a lot of non-medical infrastructure for Medicaid...
