Category: State Politics
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The Value of Work
Over the past several days I’ve been writing about Gov. Haslam’s decision on Medicaid expansion. While this has been going on, a bill, supported by the Governor, has been steamrolling its way through the state legislature. A bill that would further shift power away from workers and workplace protections by creating new hurdles for people…
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The Unbearable Partisanship of Expansion Denial
A couple of years ago, when I first published this image, I was lauded as a “chicken little” by some of my more conservative friends. They asserted that I was crying about the sky falling before a single drop had landed on my quickly balding head. With a little time for reflection I say, “How…
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What does Medicaid Expansion actually do?
One of the things I’ve seen over and over is a misunderstanding of what Medicaid expansion is, and in turn, how it would impact both people and providers, including hospitals, if enacted. To get there, we have to first understand what Tennessee’s system does now, how efficient it is, what changes would come under expansion,…
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Distant Care – Existing Hospital Deserts
Over the past several posts I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the 30 counties that may lose their hospitals. But what about the 15 counties that currently have no hospital? That’s what the red represents in this map. I want to direct your attention to the line of counties that cut across the…
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The Economic Impact of Hospital Deserts
One of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around is the enormity of the economic impact the loss of a hospital has on a small community. In a state of over 6 million people, the loss of 21,000 jobs may not seem like much. It wouldn’t have a dramatic effect on the…
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More on the Haslam Death Pannel
When Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam