Navigating Public Policy, Technology, Health, Data, and Innovation for a Fairer Future
There is a county clerk in Wisconsin who can tell you, without looking, which precincts always flip their absentee tallies at the last minute and why. She knows which vendors require a workaround nobody wrote down. She knows the unspoken truce between her office and the town board. She is retiring next month. Her replacement Read More “The Wisdom of the Ward and the Decline of Institutional Memory”
Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia is hardly the person you’d expect to be leading the charge to save Obamacare subsidies. A Republican, a Navy veteran, and a nurse practitioner representing one of the nation’s toughest swing districts, she has built a reputation as a team player in her caucus. But today, in her second term, Read More “The Battle Over Healthcare Insurance Subsidies”
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 that sought to close these gaps through health literacy initiatives. Much has changed Read More “Three Blueprints for Healing Rural America”
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 was a $5.26 billion stake in Nvidia, the chip company whose processors power Read More “What Happens When Your 401(k) Speaks Fluent AI”
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 quarterly budget review due Friday. She laughed about it later, but her story Read More “Burnout, Boundaries, and the Battle to Balance Care and Career”
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 the doors locked. The Budget Reconciliation Bill, signed into law on July 4, Read More “Small Towns Deserve More Than Empty Promises”
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 Senate’s sweeping budget legislation. It would lower the threshold for provider taxes Read More “What Happens When Washington Forgets the Heartland”
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 the very products that could save the system billions: biosimilars. Pharmaceutical companies insist Read More “Biosimilars Are the Billion Dollar Solution We Keep Ignoring”
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 profound. The arts are not ornamental. They are infrastructural. They construct emotional intelligence, Read More “Art’s Journey to Wisdom Travels the Path of a Public Good”
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 working parents. Voters are listening. Polls show overwhelming support for universal care for Read More “Why the Next Superpower Will Subsidize Daycare”