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Up to now, single-payer and universal health coverage proposals in the U.S. have foundered on one shoal or another: They're ungodly expensive; they replace plans that people like; they're too sudden; they're not sudden enough; they're politically impossible, etc., etc., etc. But now take a look at "Medicare Extra for All." It's a universal coverage proposal released last week by the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank associated with the Democratic Party. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/27)

It is not quite right to say that Nikolas Cruz, the alleged mass murderer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, fell through the cracks. The truth is even more unsettling. Long before he is alleged to have walked into the South Florida high school and started shooting, many people were alerted to Mr. Cruz’s troubling behavior. School officials, police, state social services workers and friends sought to intervene and help. Their failure underscores just how difficult it is to deal with mental illness. There are no magical formulas or easy cure-alls, and it is often hard to determine when disturbing behavior morphs into a real threat. Most people with mental illnesses pose no danger. And the law limits what authorities can do; people are not jailed in anticipation of what they might do. (2/27)

The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, with extensive bleeding. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage? The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle which delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. There was nothing left to repair, and utterly, devastatingly, nothing that could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal. (Healther Sher, 2/26)

Knowledge is power. Yet Congress has limited its own access to facts vital to understanding the nation's gun violence pandemic. That's because, since 1996,  Congress has effectively prevented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from continuing public health research into the consequences of gun violence. At the same time, while Congress forever proclaims its support of the men and women in blue, lawmakers have fettered law enforcement around the country in understanding gun-crime trends by restricting how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can share its gun-trace data. (2/28)

One in five Americans is on Medicaid, and Medicare and Social Security will require huge future tax increases. Yet some in the ostensible party of limited government think this is the perfect time to add a new entitlement for paid family leave. Who wrote that book about Republican Party suicide again? Florida Senator Marco Rubio and his sidekick Mike Lee of Utah are teaming up with Ivanka Trump to design a plan for federal paid leave. President Trump has endorsed the concept, and his budget includes an outline involving unemployment insurance. (2/27)

When Typhoid fever broke out in Pakistan in late 2016, doctors noticed that many patients were not responding to an antibiotic, ceftriaxone, that had worked before. Now we know why. Scientists reported Feb. 20 that the organism that caused the illness, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, had become extensively resistant to antibiotics. This development should be another warning that the global threat of antimicrobial resistance remains real and urgent. (2/26)

“Homes end homelessness.” That was the simple and ultimately persuasive slogan of the Proposition HHH campaign in 2016. In November of that year, an overwhelming 77% of Los Angeles city voters opted to raise their own property taxes to pay for $1.2 billion in homeless housing — 10,000 units to be built over a decade. Politicians exulted in the win and vowed that after years of short-lived strategies and half-hearted measures, they would finally address the crisis with the resolve and the resources needed to bring it under control. (2/27)

I must be a terrible doctor. That was one possibility I thought of to account for the six teenage patients of mine who over a recent three-month period presented to emergency rooms for depression and suicidal thinking. They were all between 14 and 16. Four of the six were girls. All of the girls had been actively self-mutilating, colloquially known as “cutting.” Four of the six were admitted to an in-patient psychiatric ward as significant and immediate “dangers to themselves." In other words, they were deemed by the psychiatrist in the emergency room as a potentially dangerous suicide risk. (Lawrence Diller, 2/28)

According to a new report from the Heritage Foundation, 71 percent of Americans between 17 and 24 are ineligible for military service. According to 2017 Department of Defense data, these young Americans can’t join the military because they didn’t graduate from high school, they have criminal records, or they are physically unfit. The largest reason by far is obesity. (2/28)

What McDonald's has done is teach kids to associate its less-than-ideal meals with fun, which is what matters to them more than the quality of the chicken or beef. That's why McDonald's tinkers with its food offerings, but not with the toys. When San Francisco banned toy giveaways with meals that didn't meet certain nutritional requirements, McDonald's simply sold the toys for 10 cents to anyone who bought a Happy Meal. That toy is a canny way to secure lifetime customers. (Karin Klein, 2/23)