Category: Policy

This Is How To Save Social Security And Medicare

Are cutbacks necessary to save Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy?

Canadian Leaders Finally Waking Up To The Horrors Of Single-Payer Health Care

Hopefully Americans will look at the human tragedies unfolding in Canada and Great Britain—and make clear to progressive lawmakers that they have no interest in Medicare for All here.

Canada has a universal health care system. But does it really?

Maybe one day, our universal health care system represented the values of Canadians, but certainly not anymore. American friends, you may know us for our drinking age and “free health care.” Still, unfortunately, our health care system no l…

Pediatric mental health is a growing epidemic. Here’s how Illinois is leading the way to solve that. 

One of my friends in middle school was known for her uncanny ability to brighten up any space she walked into. But when we hit high school, she had become more withdrawn and dejected, and her self-esteem plummeted. She was clearly struggling, but at th…

3 shocking health care statistics for 2023

As the New Year begins, a trio of health care statistics cast an intense and unflattering light on a nation in crisis. These figures, all of them unimaginable just a generation ago, set the stage for a financial reckoning in 2023 and beyond. Shocking s…

Primary care colonialism: the impact of profit-driven health care on communities

An excerpt from On Medicine as Colonialism. For about seventeen years, from 1991 until 2008, I lived in little Scituate, Rhode Island, where I practiced family medicine, and for about eleven of those seventeen years, I practiced out of the basement of …

The future of health care is virtual: a nurse’s perspective

This time, it’s my family. My work takes me all over the U.S., consulting on the implementation of virtual care to get the most appropriate level of care to the patients who need it. I work with teams to develop better workflows and to get more e…

The future of health care is virtual: a nurse’s perspective

This time, it’s my family. My work takes me all over the U.S., consulting on the implementation of virtual care to get the most appropriate level of care to the patients who need it. I work with teams to develop better workflows and to get more e…

Gun crisis in America: Youth fatalities on the rise

In 2020, firearm fatalities displaced motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death of U.S. youth (ages 1 to 19). We long ago dramatically reduced infectious deaths (though vaccine hesitancy threatens to upend this victory), and the “big …

Faced with yet another variant, epidemiologists must act more like silicon valley start-ups

With yet another highly contagious COVID variant sweeping the East Coast, it’s never been more clear that we need a systems approach to reforming epidemiology in the U.S.  Several legislative approaches, including the PREVENT Pandemics Act and pu…