Axios

Some Americans will be required to start paying for coronavirus tests and treatments when the federal government's COVID-19 public health emergency declarations expire this spring.

State of play: The White House announced Monday that after three years, it will end the COVID-19 public health emergency and national health emergency designations on May 11, bringing about policy changes, new health care costs and existential questions about the nation's pandemic response.

The U.S. continues to far outspend other developed nations while seeing worsening health outcomes.

Driving the news: A report from the Commonwealth Fund today shows poorer U.S. health outcomes — such as Americans being more likely to suffer from multiple chronic illnesses, die from avoidable causes including maternal mortality and assault, and having a shorter life expectancy — all while America pays the most per capita for those outcomes.

The Biden administration is weighing additional actions to help people access abortions, which may include a public health emergency declaration.

The big picture: Both abortion rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers have urged the Department of Health and Human Services and President Biden to take such a step in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which they say has created a "full-scale reproductive health crisis" across the U.S.

Americans are staying healthier longer than ever before — and they're transforming what older age looks like.

• The big picture: "We have essentially created a new stage of life. Americans retire, on average, by their early to mid-60s, yet many now remain vibrant into their mid-80s," David Brooks writes in The Atlantic.

The Biden administration on Monday finalized an oft-delayed plan to step up audits of Medicare Advantage insurers in order to identify and recover overpayments.

Why it matters: Studies and audits have identified billions of dollars of excess payments to health plans that weren't supported by patients' medical records, but federal officials in the past backed off many repayment demands.

The Biden administration plans to end the COVID-19 public health emergency and national health emergency designations on May 11, the White House announced Monday.

The state of play: The move shifts the debate around GOP resolutions ending the two emergencies, which were set to be voted on in the House this week as a referendum on the incompatibility between President Biden’s statements on the pandemic and the administration’s policy.

Mental health professionals are seeing an increase in requests from companies for trauma support training.

Why it matters: From self-care practices to recognizing the physiological impacts of trauma, more organizations have realized that workers can't just be expected to handle the trauma on their own, according to Ruth Yeo-Peterman, a resilience programming trainer with the Center for Victims of Torture.

The Biden administration on Monday moved to reverse a Trump-era policy that made it easier for employers to refuse to offer birth control coverage in company-sponsored health plans.

The big picture: The Trump administration's rollback of the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate allowed organizations to opt out of coverage, citing moral objections. Before that, exemptions were limited to religious grounds.

The number of women who died during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth jumped in the first year of the pandemic, a study in JAMA Network Open shows.

Why it matters: While pregnancy-associated causes were still the leading cause of death, the jump in mortality between 2019 and 2020 was largely not related to the pregnancies themselves.

Paradigm, a New York-based clinical trial tech platform, raised $203 million in Series A funding and acquired an oncology patient recruitment startup called Deep Lens.

Why it matters Clinical trial recruitment is a costly bottleneck for drug development, yet many patients struggle to access relevant trials. Thus a new class of matchmaking infrastructure startups like Paradigm, whose outsized bankroll could help it quickly catch rivals.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has long made no secret that he thinks drug companies and health insurers are ripping off Americans. But now he's chairman of the Senate health committee.

Why it matters: Sanders has signaled an early focus of the committee's work will be drug prices, and manufacturers are bracing for some contentious hearings.

Mining giant Rio Tinto apologized Monday as authorities in Western Australia searched for a tiny radioactive capsule that went missing in the vast Australian state.

Driving the news: A radiation alert was issued across parts of W.A. after the capsule containing a small amount of radioactive Caesium-137 vanished while being transported from Rio Tinto's Gudai-Darri mine in the remote Pilbara region to a storage facility about 870 miles away in state capital Perth, authorities said.