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Section: Blogs/Opinion

It’s My Body

It’s hard to explain what it feels like to know that, just a few generations ago, my great-great-grandmother was a slave woman whose body was controlled by a slave master. The knowledge becomes harder to stomach as I reflect on the past and realize what little has changed. When I gave birth to my child, […]

February 28, 2018

African American Pregnancy

Restricting Choice

It’s time—literally—for an out-of-the-box approach to the Trump administration’s plan to help feed our most vulnerable neighbors. In last week’s presidential budget, the administration proposed replacing most Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits with a pre-selected box of mostly dry goods like peanut butter, pasta and cereal. They wanted to stop benefit recipients from choosing […]

February 26, 2018

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Bad TV, Bad Medicine

Along with a dwindling number of my medical colleagues, I’ve been watching Fox’s new TV show “The Resident,” which documents the experiences of an intern fresh out of medical school (the charming Manish Dayal), along with his chief resident (a brash but dedicated Matt Czurchy), and an assortment of other residents, nurses (including the wonderful […]

February 22, 2018

Seniors Will Pay

On the campaign trail, President Trump made a lot of promises, including the declaration that he would not cut Medicare as president. But that’s exactly what he’s doing with his proposed budget for 2019. Trump’s plan includes $554 billion in cuts to Medicare, the federal health care program that provides insurance to 55 million Americans […]

February 20, 2018

Dreamers’ Health

Dreamers, or the young adults who were brought to this country illegally by their parents and who have received protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, have been at the center of a contentious fight over the federal budget, immigration reform, and border security. Yet lost in this politically-charged conflict […]

February 14, 2018

A No-Brainer

It began, as so many things do these days, with a Donald Trump tweet. Frustrated by his inability to kill the ‘Obamacare’ expansion of public healthcare provision in the United States, Trump seized on a protest about the under-funding of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) in London last Saturday to trash the entire concept of […]

February 12, 2018

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The Medicaid Burden

My last column dealt with efforts to “repeal and replace” Obamacare (Affordable Care Act or “ACA”). To briefly review, the original Obamacare bill was introduced and passed in 2010 in a highly unusual manner with no debate and no amendments so the majority of its provisions were left to the Secretary of Health and Human […]

February 7, 2018

Drug Prices

President Trump announced during his State of the Union address that one of his greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. This is a topic that I have written about many times before, but in a limited fashion. Considering President Trump’s specific call to this issue, I thought a more thorough explanation […]

February 5, 2018

Religious Freedom

On January 18, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the formation of a new “Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom within the HHS Office for Civil Rights. As the chief clinical officer at Howard Brown Health, the largest LGBTQ health care organization in the Midwest, I am alarmed by this assault on […]

February 1, 2018

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Black Stress

As we leave behind a year that was notable for its combination of natural and human disasters, no one can deny that we live in stressful times. But stress is not equitably distributed, and neither are stress-related health outcomes. Individuals living below the poverty level have poorer mental health, are diagnosed with more chronic health […]

January 29, 2018

Trumps’ Exam

President Donald Trump recently had his first routine physical exam, along with cognitive testing, performed by the White House physician Ronny Jackson. The exam confirmed good physical and cognitive health, Jackson said, while unveiling areas, such as his diet, that need improvement. But just how much does this test tell us about Trump’s health? Read […]

January 24, 2018

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Medicaid Sabotage

Medicaid was enacted in 1965 under the Lyndon Johnson administration as a social insurance program to provide lower-income Americans with the health care they need. Since then it has been solidly supported by all subsequent administrations as a social contract within our society, as a matter of fairness and necessity. As poverty and inequality have […]

January 22, 2018

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Renew Opioid Declaration

Now is the time to urge Congress and the White House to renew the declaration of the opioid crisis as a public health emergency. In October of 2017, President Trump declared a 90-day public health emergency as an effort to confront the ongoing opioid crisis. That declaration ends on January 23, 2018. Following the announcement, […]

January 17, 2018

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Who’s at Fault?

On my pediatrics rotation in medical school, several residents told me they worked with children in part because they sometimes found themselves judging adults: Did they do drugs? Were they fat? Why did they drink so much? The idea that Americans should take personal responsibility for their health has recently received renewed attention. Vice President […]

January 16, 2018

Obamacare Lives

Congressional Republicans tried in vain to repeal it. President Donald Trump said he would simply let it die of its own flaws. Americans complained about it. But nearly eight years after President Barack Obama’s signature health care law was approved, the Affordable Care Act appears here to stay – and perhaps even flourish, experts say. […]

January 11, 2018

Housing as a Health Issue

Envision a society that fully connects the usually disparate worlds of health and housing. Clinicians would implement strategies that feature “housing as a vaccine” to prevent illness and disability. Professionals from both worlds would routinely link lodging with counseling, case management, and other services to ensure that supportive housing more robustly meets the needs of […]

January 8, 2018

Banned Words

The Washington Post recently reported that, in an unprecedented and dangerous move, the Trump-Pence administration has banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using seven key words and phrases: “evidence-based,” “science-based,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” and “diversity.” As a health care provider committed to fighting health disparities and caring for everyone who […]

January 3, 2018

Repeal and Stabilize

As President Trump and Congressional Republicans move toward passing a critical tax cut and reform package to boost the economy, they also have the opportunity to start repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Repealing the individual mandate in the tax bill is a good first step toward a better market for health insurance that […]

December 21, 2017