Author

Michele Johnson
Commentary: Medicaid expansion has never been about money.
By: Michele Johnson - May 24, 2021
As our legislators adjourn, they keep in place for the seventh year their law preventing their fellow Tennesseans from receiving federal health insurance. Legislators also keep in place the health coverage that they and their families enjoy, subsidized by the taxes of their fellow Tennesseans. In 2015, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam proposed to expand Medicaid […]
Commentary: A costly way to change the subject
By: Michele Johnson - January 19, 2021
Over 150 years after the Constitution was amended to promise equal rights to African-Americans and a decade after the nation’s first African-American president signed the Affordable Care Act into law, racism continues to dominate Tennessee health policy. Last week’s rush to ratify the Trump Administration’s TennCare block grant was the latest chapter in Tennessee officials’ […]
In the unforgiving light of the pandemic
By: Michele Johnson - May 6, 2020
As an implacable force of nature that is utterly immune to political spin and ideological cant, the coronavirus is shining a harsh light on Tennessee. The pandemic highlights our collective vulnerabilities and, especially, the folly of a politics guided by ideology rather than facts. With the stern authority of reality and the deadly seriousness of […]