Featured Commentary category, Page 80

For centuries, America has been the land of promise, and we have led the way in lifesaving advancement. In the span of my medical career alone, I have witnessed remarkable innovation — from groundbreaking discoveries to new therapeutics and even cures for deadly diseases. In 2020, America’s scientists and researchers...

President-elect Joe Biden ran on a platform to address climate change, remedy inequality, resurrect the economy and implement a more focused covid-19 strategy. Preliminary tests indicate Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine could be as much as 95% effective, and others are on the way from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Oxford-AstraZeneca. However, producing...

Pennsylvanians have made tough decisions amid the profound economic costs of the covid-19 pandemic. Millions of Pennsylvanians lost their jobs temporarily or permanently this year. Sadly, families continue to struggle and sacrifice to stay afloat. In the coming state budget debate, lawmakers and the governor need to back them up...

We can all remember the run on consumer goods like toilet paper and cleaning supplies back in March and April 2020. With an unknown, invisible virus circulating among us, any items or surface touched by a human hand were a target for disinfection. Groceries and other items delivered to our...

The recent rise in covid-19 cases across the United States is a serious reminder of the strength and longevity of this pandemic. Western Pennsylvania is not immune to the increased number of cases. There have been more than 1,000 deaths and over 45,000 in our 14-county region, and we continue...

We’re in the midst of the worst health crisis of the 21st century — and it’s not covid-19. The coronavirus is a terrible disease, of course. In just 10 months, it has killed more than 1 million people around the globe. But there’s a far more dangerous plague circulating through...

Many establishment foreign-policy experts blame Donald Trump for the poor state of relations with Europe. However, a Joe Biden presidency cannot resolve enduring differences and dysfunctions that stress trans-Atlantic cooperation. For example, Biden can stop blocking World Trade Organization dispute settlement, and rejoin the World Health Organization and the Paris...

Farmers in Pennsylvania and other states have good reason to be uneasy about future energy policies popularizing the political fringes. Unlike a sudden and unpredictable pandemic that threw the world into turmoil, differing paths on the use of America’s abundant fossil fuel resources could have predictably bad consequences for agriculture...

Pennsylvania is an epicenter of the 2020 general election. Just 82,000 votes separate former Vice President Joe Biden from President Trump, but in the world we live in, whichever candidate ultimately wins, half the country — and half of Pennsylvania — may distrust the results. I represent Indiana and Jefferson...

I did not expect President Trump to take his loss gracefully, but I have to admit I did not expect to see my Republican colleagues in the General Assembly run to his aid and make bad-faith allegations about our election. Pennsylvania ran a methodical, secure and accurate election, and I...

“Character is who you are when nobody else is watching.” A middle-school English teacher introduced this phrase to me. We recited it each day in class, and it is a lesson that I have carried with me throughout my life and into my teaching career. Now, in 2020, I think...

Free and fair elections are a relative novelty. Even in America, where we have always had a Republican democracy, for much of our history a relatively small portion of Americans could vote. It was not just that women and slaves lacked the franchise; most men could not vote, unless they...

We are now eight months into the covid-19 pandemic with little end in sight other than the promise of a vaccine ready for mass distribution sometime in the new year. This means that most Americans will need to make critical decisions about what to do for the upcoming holiday season...

Evangelical Christians have unquestionably been a loyal and largely unmovable base of support for President Trump since he has been in office and in some cases before. Should the election results not be overturned by recounts or court decisions, where do they go and what should they do? Perhaps no...

We live in a time where you could break the bank by seeking treatment for mental health. Astronomical costs of therapy deter people from seeking necessary care. Insurance companies may cover some cost, yet oftentimes not enough. Many will only cover your first several sessions before you are forced to...

Here’s a game you might play. It might have come from the mind of Stephen King. Except it’s real and works like this. You’ve received an invitation to a party — it has come almost at a perfect time. It seems like forever since you’ve been able to sit with...

The defining feature of the Trump administration’s “America First” energy policy was the near exclusive fixation on oil and natural gas development coupled with the aggressive rollback of environmental policies and regulations associated with decarbonization. Such a status quo policy ran counter to global economic growth trends to decarbonize the...

The constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is once again on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on the comments from justices during arguments heard on Tuesday, it appears that the court will not strike down the law in its entirety. Yet there still remains significant uncertainty...

Irreconcilable differences have existed for some time between Pennsylvania’s hunters and the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC). Due to socioeconomic conditions around the early to mid-1900s, there existed for a time a unique habitat situation (e.g., re-growth of logged areas, abandonment of small farms, etc.) that led to an abundance of...

As educators are well into the school year, the national debate about the efficacy of online learning continues. Now, though, the stakes are higher. As the economy emerges from the current health crisis, an educated and motivated workforce will be needed to fuel its recovery. Education is not one-size-fits-all, and...

As Americans went to bed Tuesday night, many wondered if they would wake up to a new president, much like they did four years ago. But by 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN’s Don Lemon put it best: “If anyone tells you they know, they don’t.” At that time several so-called...

With Pennsylvania staring down a pandemic- induced $4.5 billion budget deficit, and just a few short weeks before our current budget expires on Nov. 30, the commonwealth is short on options. Without new revenues, Harrisburg lawmakers will need to enact painful cuts that will make our covid-19 recovery longer and...

$7.9 billion might not seem like much money when measured against the trillions of dollars the federal government has spent in response to covid-19 — and the trillions more it might soon spend. But President Trump has a $7.9 billion drug rebate proposal that almost certainly violates his administration’s authority...

The “paradox of prosperity” is the strange tendency of many people who have benefited from economic advances to denounce and vilify the source of their prosperity, a sort of “bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you” phenomenon. One example of this syndrome is the perplexing (some would say “perverse”) antipathy that many Americans have toward fossil...

The City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) conducted a public Zoom meeting Oct. 21 on the proposed Mon-Oakland shuttle service. The new service, using electric vehicles, would connect Oakland with parts of Greenfield and Hazelwood, such as development at the Hazelwood Green site. The majority of the...