Our Health Policy Matters

By now, everyone has heard the news from Ferguson, Missouri.  An unarmed 18 year old named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer.  Michael Brown was black. Some of the events surrounding the shooting are in dispute.  But what isn’t in dispute is that for the past two weeks, a community has been torn apart by race – a community that until recently was best known for its proximity to St. Louis and its designation as a Playful City, USA . Picture credit: Health Affairs Media reports since the August 9 th shooting have focused almost entirely on one angle – race relations.  We’ve heard about unrest in the city, the National Guard, police in riot gear, and danger in the streets.  We’ve heard about the District Attorney’s ties to law enforcement, and concerns that a too-white Grand Jury may be racially motivated not to indict the police officer involved in the deadly shooting. But the media have been strangely silent about a dif...

By now, everyone has heard the news from Ferguson, Missouri.  An unarmed 18 year old named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer.  Michael Brown was black. Some of the events surrounding the shooting are in dispute.  But what isn’t in dispute is that for the past two weeks, a community has been torn apart by race – a community that until recently was best known for its proximity to St. Louis and its designation as a Playful City, USA . Picture credit: Health Affairs Media reports since the August 9 th shooting have focused almost entirely on one angle – race relations.  We’ve heard about unrest in the city, the National Guard, police in riot gear, and danger in the streets.  We’ve heard about the District Attorney’s ties to law enforcement, and concerns that a too-white Grand Jury may be racially motivated not to indict the police officer involved in the deadly shooting. But the media have been strangely silent about a dif...