New: The American College of Physicians officially endorsed single-payer healthcare reform today for the first time. modernhealthcare.com/politics-polic…
Rachel Cohrs Zhang
3,901 posts
Rachel Cohrs Zhang
@rachelcohrs
Reporting on the intersection of health care, money & politics @business.
✉️: [email protected]
Signal: rachelcohrszhang.87
Washington, DC
Joined September 2014
- Scoop: Last summer, Operation Warp Speed was running out of money. Instead of asking Congress for more support, Trump administration officials quietly spent $10 billion out of a fund for hospitals and health care providers on Warp Speed contracts @statnews
- NEW: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki waved a thick binder of Covid-19 budget documents for the television cameras, and offered to make copies for journalists. I was the only reporter who asked to see the binder
- NEW: The White House's Covid-19 budget crunch is so serious that the White House has delayed buying more than 9 million courses of Pfizer's antiviral pill. This is about half of the total the White House has publicly promised to buy
- The NIH has had $1 billion and more than two years to study long Covid. They haven’t enrolled a single patient in a clinical trial, and treatment studies have been repeatedly delayed. @betsyladyzhets of @MuckRock and I spent months investigating
- Big announcement from NIH today that they are launching the first clinical trials for long Covid treatments. And HHS is finally launching its long Covid research office, but it only has two full-time employees
- NEW: Congress gave the NIH a massive infusion of cash to study long Covid 15 months ago. But patients and researchers are losing patience with the slow pace of progress. NIH has only enrolled 3% of its recruitment goal so far
- Some personal news: I'm thrilled to announce that next week I'm headed to @statnews to join their stellar D.C. team. 2021 is going to bring big things for STAT and important health policy debates in Washington. I can't wait to get started!
- President Biden is on the verge of his own crowning health care achievement to call, in his words, a BFD. After two decades, Democrats are finally on track to break the firewall between the pharmaceutical industry and the Medicare program.
- Replying to @rachelcohrsThe binder’s contents — which the White House would not allow to be photographed — offer a window into what information the White House shared with which GOP lawmakers during an explosive, drawn-out fight over Covid-19 relief funding that still isn’t over
- Personal news: After four years at STAT, today is my last day. Next week, I'll be transitioning to cover the intersection of health care, politics, and money in the Trump administration from D.C. with the health team at Bloomberg News.
- Replying to @rachelcohrsThe news that the White House is delaying buying antivirals due to budget constraints comes amid a heated government funding fight on the Hill. Republicans are skeptical about giving the White House $22 billion more to fight Covid
- NEW: Moderate Democrat Rep. Scott Peters tried to torpedo Nancy Pelosi's drug pricing bill in May. The next day, CEOs of big drug companies and PhRMA lobbyists flooded his campaign with cash. Peters' effort didn't become public until a week later statnews.com/2021/07/20/pha… @statnews
- There have been a lot of changes around here — a new byline after getting married last month, and now a new job title! I am very excited to take on more responsibility to support our incredible STAT D.C. team. statnews.com/new-leadership…
