Readers and Tweeters Feel Americans’ Pain
Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. This made me cry. I don’t think we understand yet the devastating impact this is having on our nurses, doctors, and other members of the healthcare workforce. At an Overrun ICU, […]
Hospitals Confront Climate Change as Patients Sick From Floods and Fires Crowd ERs
[UPDATED at 5:45 p.m. ET] When triple-digit temperatures hit the Pacific Northwest this summer, the emergency room at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center was ill prepared. Doctors raced to treat heat-aggravated illness in homeless people, elderly patients with chronic ailments, and overdosing narcotics users. “The magnitude of the exposure, this was so far off the charts […]
A Colorado Town Is About as Vaccinated as It Can Get. Covid Still Isn’t Over There.
San Juan County, Colorado, can boast that 99.9% of its eligible population has received at least one dose of covid-19 vaccine, putting it in the top 10 counties in the nation, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If vaccines were the singular armor against covid’s spread, then on paper, San […]
Santa Cruz Health Officials Honored for Persevering in Covid Battle Against Tide of ‘Denialism’
Two California public health officials who pressed forward with aggressive measures to contain covid-19 even while enduring death threats and harassment will be honored with the 2021 PEN/Benenson Courage Award from PEN America, the group announced Friday. Mimi Hall and Dr. Gail Newel, health director and health officer, respectively, for Santa Cruz County, California, will […]
A Covid Test Costing More Than a Tesla? It Happened in Texas.
When covid-19 struck last year, Travis Warner’s company became busier than ever. He installs internet and video systems, and with people suddenly working from home, service calls surged. He and his employees took precautions like wearing masks and physically distancing, but visiting clients’ homes daily meant a high risk of covid exposure. “It was just […]
¿Un test de covid más caro que un Tesla? En Texas es posible
Cuando covid-19 golpeó el año pasado, la compañía de Travis Warner se puso más ocupada que nunca. Instala sistemas de video e Internet, y con la gente repentinamente trabajando desde casa, las llamadas solicitando servicios aumentaron. Warner y sus empleados tomaron precauciones como usar máscaras y distanciarse físicamente, pero ir a las casas de los […]
As Democrats Bicker Over Massive Spending Plan, Here’s What’s at Stake for Medicaid
Hours after the Supreme Court in 2012 narrowly upheld the Affordable Care Act but rejected making Medicaid expansion mandatory for states, Obama administration officials laughed when asked whether that would pose a problem. In a White House briefing, top advisers to President Barack Obama told reporters states would be foolish to turn away billions in […]
Death in Dallas: One Family’s Experience in the Medicaid Gap
For years, Millicent McKinnon of Dallas went without health insurance. She was one of roughly 1 million Texans who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid in the state but too little to buy their own insurance. That is, until she died in 2019. She was 64 and had been unable to find consistent care […]
Covid Is Killing Rural Americans at Twice the Rate of Urbanites
Rural Americans are dying of covid at more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts — a divide that health experts say is likely to widen as access to medical care shrinks for a population that tends to be older, sicker, heavier, poorer and less vaccinated. While the initial surge of covid-19 deaths skipped […]
The Part of the ‘Free Britney’ Saga That Could Happen to Anyone
When Britney Spears last went before a judge, in June, she bristled as she told of being forced into psychiatric care that cost her $60,000 a month. Though the pop star’s circumstances in a financial conservatorship are unusual, every year hundreds of thousands of other psychiatric patients also receive involuntary care, and many are stuck […]