The story of rural healthcare in America is always a story of distance. Distance between patients and providers. Distance between federal policy and local needs. Distance between what is possible and what is practiced. Two years ago, I examined three pioneering programs […]
Margaret Chen has spent thirty-two years teaching fourth grade in San Bernardino. She retired last June with a comfortable pension from CalSTRS, California’s teacher retirement system. What she discovered in her first quarterly statement might have surprised her: among her largest investments […]
There’s a woman I know who makes chicken pot pie every Tuesday. Last week, she forgot the chicken. Not because she’s losing her mind, but because her mind was simultaneously tracking her mother’s medication schedule, her son’s upcoming science fair, and the […]
Washington debates often revolve around numbers. Trillions in spending. Billions in cuts. A line item here. A policy adjustment there. Out in rural America, the numbers feel less abstract. They signal the difference between a hospital with lights on and one with […]
Every so often, Congress confronts a decision that seems technocratic on the surface but reveals something deeper about our national character. The current debate over Medicaid funding for rural hospitals is one of those moments. At issue is a provision tucked into […]
The United States pays more for prescription drugs than any other country. That is not a function of better drugs or better care. It is a result of a deliberately engineered system that protects monopolies, encourages price discrimination, and stifles competition from […]
Modern economies reward efficiency, not reflection. Our institutions—schools, platforms, governments—are calibrated to deliver outcomes, track progress, and benchmark success. In this landscape, the arts are often treated as indulgences: budget-line luxuries, extracurricular distractions, or marketplace novelties. Yet this utilitarian bias misses something […]
NYC has one of America’s most watched mayoral races ongoing. Perhaps the most surprising issue dominating headlines is not crime or housing. It is childcare. Candidates are proposing free care for toddlers, city-run after-school programs, extended school days, and tax-funded support for […]
It began with a cough. Then a fever. By the time the red rash appeared on Ian Rojas’s neck, the pediatric unit at Dallas Methodist had already started pulling masks from storage. A disease thought to be a relic of another era, […]
The House Agriculture Committee just passed a $300 billion proposal that answers one question with brutal clarity: Who pays for dinner in America? The answer is not the billionaires. Not the corporations. Not the wealthy donors underwriting the very tax cuts driving […]