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For the Love of Health Care and Health Policy

Nothing melts our hearts like a health policy valentine. Readers made us swoon this season, writing poetic lines about prescription drug pricing, medical debt, primary care shortages, and more.

Here are some of our favorites, starting with the grand prize winner and first runner-up, whose entries were each turned into a cartoon by staff illustrator Oona Tempest.

1st Place

Darling, this Valentine’s Day,let’s grab our passportsand fly away to someplace,where the same drugs cost a fractionof what they do in the States.

— Jennifer Reck

Runner-Up

I saw the doctor for a check,I had a lump in my right breast.Two weeks for the answer.It wasn’t cancer.So instead of death, I’m in debt.— Sunshine Moore Anger

Other Newsroom Favorites

I was lost in the sadnessand shock of you leaving,Tore my eyes awayfrom my Morning BriefingHow could you leave us,Why would you stray?When you are loved so dearly by the ACA?But I realized too late,’Twas not to be,My primary care no longer loved me

– Zac Aulson

Parental love is beautifulAnd guess what makes it strongerA paid parental leave policyTo stay with baby longer

– Andrea Ferguson

The paperwork flirts with my affections,A dance of denials, full of rejections.My heart yearns for you, my sweet medication, but insurance insists on prior authorization.

– Sally Nix

My love for you, darling, is blindingLike a clinical trial pre-findingsBut I fear we shall partAnd I’ll lose my heartBecause of Medicaid unwinding!

– Kara Gavin

ýҕl Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .

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