Congress

The U.S. House is considering a bill to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower costs for prescription drugs like insulin, a life-saving diabetes medicine that can cost families thousands of dollars a year.

In this interview, Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, explains provisions that make it easier for Floridians who lost their job to keep health insurance during the pandemic.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the package includes about $7 billion for cities and counties in Florida.

Many are essential workers at high risk of exposure to the coronavirus — and the pandemic’s economic crash — with no direct access to billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief.

Airlines and airports, which have been hit hard financially by the pandemic, will get another $14 billion under President Biden’s plan, provided they do not lay off any staff before October.

The package would deliver a new round of financial assistance to Americans grappling with the impact of the pandemic. The House will need to vote on the final version.

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.

Bill Herrle heads the National Federation of Independent Business in Florida. He says the aid would be welcome.

The president called the $600 payments to individuals "ridiculously low" and the billions appropriated for foreign aid, environmental programs and cultural institutions "wasteful."

From direct payments for American households to mass transit, the congressional relief package contains money for individuals and institutions affected by the coronavirus pandemic. But there's more.