The federal government allowed states to get extra money in exchange for not booting people off Medicaid. Starting in April, the states are going to start kicking people off of Medicaid and all those people will lose insurance. The second biggest effect is that pharma companies are now going to charge a lot of money for vaccines and for treatments. Pfizer and Moderna have both said that they'll charge somewhere between 80 and 130 dollars for a vaccine dose.
The Biden administration said this week that it would end the public health emergency for Covid, a sign that federal officials believe that the pandemic has moved into a new, less dire phase.
The move carries both symbolic weight and real-world consequences for millions of Americans.
Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for The New York Times.
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