Category: Health Care
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How Childhood Traumas Are Driving Special-Needs Funding
by James A. Bacon More than 17,000 Virginia school children were categorized by the Virginia Department of Education as being disabled by autism or severe emotional issues in the 2018-19 school year. If these students get too unruly for schools to handle, they often wind up getting transferred to private special-education day schools. The cost…
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Would a Mobile Crisis Team Have Saved Marcus-David Peters?
by James A. Bacon Marcus-David Peters, fatally shot in 2018 by a Richmond police officer while in the midst of a mental health crisis, has become an icon for criminal justice reform in Virginia. Protesters occupying the area around the Lee statue on Monument Avenue erected a sign (since removed) designating Lee Circle as Marcus-David…
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Biden, Birx and COVID Lockdowns in Virginia
by DJ Rippert Sine wave. The third wave of COVID-19 has been spreading across the world and has come to America. As should have been expected it has also come to Virginia. Many European countries have enacted lockdowns that would be considered draconian by most Americans. Several U.S. governors have also dramatically reversed the re-opening…
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The University of Virginia Eastern Virginia Medical School
by James C. Sherlock With additional information and thoughts generated by responses to my original posts on this matter, I offer this post as a final proposal before the November 15 release of the Sentara-funded “study” of what I call the Sentara Plan for Eastern Virginia Medical school. The nation is short of doctors and…
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UVa Medical School Takeover EVMS – A Real Opportunity for A Lot of Good
by James C. Sherlock I recommend the transformation of healthcare and physician training in the Hampton Roads. I reject both the presumptions and the terms of the current study of a merger of ODU, EVMS, Norfolk State and Sentara to improve EVMS. That study is funded by the organizations involved and the outcome is pre-ordained. But…
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The Strange Case of a Proposed Medical Merger in Hampton Roads
by James C. Sherlock There was a story — “Could EVMS merge with ODU, Sentara?” – in the Virginian Pilot this morning. It was well done and rendered a major public service. A private study is “assessing” a regional merger of Sentara, ODU, EVMS and Norfolk State. “Its task will be to provide recommendations to Gov. Ralph Northam on…
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Northam’s Non-COVID Non-Update
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4eTqh-1pTU&w=480&h=315] Note: video starts at 4:50 by DJ Rippert Northam fiddles. As a resurgence of COVID-19 spreads across Europe and the United States, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam held a press conference ostensibly to discuss the pandemic. The presser provided little new information about the coronavirus or Virginia’s plans to combat the disease. Northam did…
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Does Northam Have a Plan to Battle a COVID Resurgence in Virginia?
by DJ Rippert The second (or third) time around. America’s polarized political situation has all eyes on the upcoming presidential election. Millions are voting early and millions more will vote by mail. There is a good chance that the final results will not be known on the morning after Election Day. If true, America’s attention…
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Why We Love Governor Ralph
By Peter Galuszka He’s been through “coonman,” “blackface,” a muddled interview about late term abortion, and aggressive and controversial steps to stop the pandemic, but Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has sprinted through a recent statewide poll with flying colors. According to a new Washington Post-Schar School poll, more than half of Virginia’s registered voters approve of the…
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Hey, What Happened to All the School Shootings?
by James A. Bacon Anyone notice how we don’t hear about school shootings anymore? Ever since the nation became fixated on the COVID-19 epidemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, school shootings have dropped out of the headlines. According to an ongoing list compiled by Wikipedia, there have been eight school shootings (four in Texas, two…
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Health Enterprise Zones for Virginia
by James C. Sherlock COVID-19 exposed what many already knew: Poor people suffer broad disparities in health outcomes when compared to their wealthier counterparts. In my original post on health care legislative initiatives in the 2021 General Assembly Session, I recommended the establishment of Health Enterprise Zones. That initiative seeks reduction of health disparities among…
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A Measured Consequence: More Heavy Drinking
by Carol J.Bova Yesterday, Jim Bacon wrote about “the unmeasured consequences of society’s reaction to the COVID-19 epidemic.” The RAND Corporation COVID-19 Update on October 8, 2020 provided a reference to a longitudinal survey that examined one of those consequences — alcohol usage. JAMA Network Open published a Research Letter, “Changes in Adult Alcohol Use…
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Virginia: 4,500 “Excess” Deaths This Year, Only Half from COVID-19
by James A. Bacon It’s good to see that the left-leaning Virginia Mercury making the same observation as Bacon’s Rebellion about the unmeasured consequences of society’s reaction to the COVID-19 epidemic. Research from Virginia Commonwealth University shows than an additional 4,500 Virginians died between March and August over the number that would have been predicted…
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A Broad Healthcare Agenda for the 2021 General Assembly
Towards a Better, Freer, Less Expensive and More Accessible Healthcare System in Virginia by James C. Sherlock COVID-19 exposed weaknesses in Virginia’s healthcare delivery system in both readiness and equity of access. Even before COVID, we have been dealing for decades with the costs of all kinds imposed by Virginia’s unregulated regional healthcare monopolies. The…
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778 Virginia Hospital Patients Discharged to Nursing Homes
by James A. Bacon A large majority of the patients treated for COIVD-19 and released from a Virginia hospital between April and June this year went directly home. But a significant number — 778 — were transferred to a “skilled nursing facility,” according to data contained in a Virginia Hospital and Health Care Association webinar…