If I Must Die
By Refaat Alareer If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so…
January 2024
Seeing Every Child
Nonprofit provides health care regardless of ability to pay By Tiney Ricciardi When Reid DeSpiegelaere, chief development officer at Every Child Pediatrics, talks about his work’s mission, he points to the name of the nonprofit…
‘Shame!’ LNG Plant Opponents Rage
By Lisa Sorg It took nearly two hours for dozens of opponents of a proposed liquified natural gas plant in Person County to explain how the project—aspects of which have been crafted in secret—would harm…
When a For-Profit Company Takes Over the ER
Commentary by Clayton Dalton Earlier this year, I stood outside the hospital in New Mexico where I worked as an emergency physician. I was, for the first time, picketing. The next day I would be…
This Is a Pandemic of Attrition
Commentary by Joe Vipond, Julia M. Wright, and Dan Furst It’s time for our society to admit that we’ve made a mistake and change course. The COVID-is-mild experiment, despite the wishing and the hoping, has…
Reporting on Long Covid Taught Me to Be a Better Journalist
Commentary by Ed Yong In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many people who are now still sick were first infected, the common wisdom was that the coronavirus either sent you to an…
Medicare Advantage Plans Disadvantage Many Elderly and Disabled People
By Eleanor J. Bader When retired veterinarian Richard Timmins went on a Medicare Advantage plan in 2016, he admits that he knew very little about Traditional Medicare (also called Original Medicare) or the more than…
Medicare Needs Modernization and Expansion—
Not Privatization By Jamila Headley & Nicole Jorwic For 58 years, Medicare and Medicaid have provided lifesaving and life-sustaining care for millions of Americans, but they are rapidly being weakened by politicians who insist on…
We Need a Public Option for Pharmaceuticals
Commentary by William Haseltine America is currently facing dual public health crises of record drug shortages and skyrocketing prices. Several critical medicines are in short supply, including at least 14 essential generic cancer drugs, ADHD…
Rethink Drug Legalization
Commentary by Carl Hintz Many people support the legalization of marijuana, and few people believe that tobacco, alcohol, or caffeine should be illegal. However, “hard drugs” such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and opioids should also be…