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☆ Denying Your Medical Care is Big Business in America - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Alexander Stockton | Video Alexander Stockton | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Should your insurance company be allowed to stop you from getting a treatment — even if your doctor says it’s necessary? Doctors are often required to get insurance permission before providing medical care. This process is called prior authorization and it can be used by profit-seeking insurance companies to create intentional barriers between patients and the health care they need. Prior authorization has been around for decades, but doctors say its use has increased in recent years and now rank it as one of the top issues in health care. The video also explains how a process that is supposed to save money actually inflates U.S. health care costs while enriching insurance companies.

There is precious little space on social media for nuance or neutrality when it comes to the war between Israel and Hamas. No matter what you think of the conflict, expressions of solidarity aren’t just appreciated; they are expected. But as we argue in the video above, the insistence on picking a side threatens the public’s ability to take a holistic view of what is happening, to recognize and acknowledge atrocities irrespective of their perpetrators and to honor and mourn those who lost their lives. If truth is the first casualty in war, empathy is the second.

Organizations: Hamas Locations: Israel

A lot of people have recently weighed in on legacy admissions, the preferential treatment given to the children of alumni in the college application process: President Biden. Officials at numerous colleges — some defending the practice, others calling to ditch it. The Education Department even opened a civil rights investigation last month into Harvard University’s legacy admissions policy. But what about the students who have benefited from the practice themselves, and were accepted by elite colleges in part because their parents are alumni? In the Opinion Video above, five recent university graduates, all legacies, wrestle with the advantages they enjoyed in the college admissions process.

Persons: Biden Organizations: Education Department, Harvard

Listening to the men in the short Opinion Video above is like encountering visitors from another planet. They are serving life sentences at Angola prison, in rural Louisiana, with little to no hope for release. The men are among the thousands in Louisiana — and more than 50,000 nationwide — locked up for life without parole. The point is not to diminish the severity of the crimes that put these men behind bars. But, ask yourself as you watch the video, how long is long enough?

Organizations: . Sentencing Locations: Angola, Louisiana, Louisiana —, Maryland, South Carolina, New Mexico

Kids didn’t start the war in Ukraine. In the Opinion video above, we hear from Ukrainian children who have lost a parent during the conflict. The program, called Wonder Camp, is part of a support mission in Ukraine by an international organization, Children of Heroes Charity Fund. “These kids are not part of this war, but they are casualties,” said Brice Espino, the chief executive of Children of Heroes, which provided the funding for the camp and gathered the participants. (Ahead Foundation, a Ukrainian group, supplied the camp’s personnel and ran the program.)

Persons: ”, Brice Espino Organizations: Heroes Locations: Ukraine, Ukrainian

☆ The Teen Mental Health Industry Is Failing Them - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Alexander Stockton | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +26 min

Sometimes they are treated in ways that are illegal to treat prisoners, let alone kids seeking mental health treatment. But former patients from residential treatment facilities whom Times Opinion interviewed said they received one-on-one therapy only once a week, if that. The company owns dozens of hospitals and hundreds of behavioral health facilities and makes about $11 billion a year. In 2017, when he was 15 years old, his mother, Renee Hanania, sent him to a UHS facility in Virginia. America’s patchwork mental health treatment is still insufficient.

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