For over a month, my office has been going back and forth with ICE officials about Andrea's condition. We have been ignored, put off, and frankly, lied to about the treatment she has received while in detention.
Maria Elena Healy, a registered nurse at Laguna Honda, stated, 'I am just one of the few who have been laid off. They are eliminating an entire department. These people will no longer have the specialty nursing care that we provide.'
"This argues for the need to sustain such policies and shows that it is possible to right the wrongs retroactively, which is a powerful idea," said Kenneth Michelson, MD, MPH, associate professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Emergency Medicine and a co-author of the study.
Most people leave doctor visits with prescriptions, but still feel unsure—instructions make sense, but no one asks about their life. In contrast, when a provider knows your name, remembers your story, and explains care in a way that fits you, the experience feels different—and that difference matters.
Pregnancy is the only condition where Florida courts have ruled that a patient can be forced to undergo unwanted treatment. Even a state prisoner on a hunger strike has more rights to make medical decisions.
Because of budget cuts, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has ended clinical services at seven of its public health clinic sites. As of Feb. 27, the county is no longer providing services such as vaccinations, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, or tuberculosis diagnosis and specialty TB care at the affected locations, according to county officials and a department fact sheet.
February is a time to honor Black history, resilience, and progress. It is also a moment to confront an uncomfortable truth: in New York City, equity in health, family stability, and community well-being is still shaped by race and zip code. For too many Black families, structural inequities continue to limit access to care, not because of individual choices, but because of where people live and how our systems are designed.
States like Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia saw the most significant dips. "People have less access to care, and that tends to translate into worse health outcomes," said Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He added that many households' financial security is at risk: "People will face big bills that they either can't pay, and that hurts their credit. Or they do pay, but it requires them to skimp in other areas."
Adult literacy advocate Toni Cordell recounts the story of feeling comforted when her doctor told her that her medical concern could be solved with an easy surgery. She agreed to proceed without asking further questions and didn't understand the medical consent forms because she didn't read well. At a follow-up office visit a couple of weeks after the procedure, Cordell was shocked when the nurse asked, "How are you feeling since your hysterectomy?"
Many other higher-income countries are grappling with rising obesity and diabetes, but the U.S. stands out for how consistently those risks translate into worse cardiovascular outcomes, and how wide the gaps are by income, race, ethnicity, and geography.