Finalizing my syllabus for an intro to US health policy course that starts next week. Amused by how many readings/discussions that used to take weeks of staging and scaffolding on my part can more or less be subbed out with HEY STUDENTS JUST LOOK OUT THE WINDOW ON 2020.

PRE-2020 course: Did you know that despite the availability of impressive & highly technical medical care for those with access, the US' ability to manage relatively simple *public* health risks is far beneath where it should be?
2020 Students, behind cloth masks: NO KIDDING.

PRE-2020 course used to have a week on emerging and re-emerging diseases, where I had to work to convince students that allocating too many HC resources to chronic illnesses ran the risk of being unready when/if communicable illnesses threatened US society.
2020 Students:

Pre-2020 course: Even as it provides jobs & profits to some, our health care system as it exists can also actually be a threat to our overall economy, in part because it leaves too many w/out coverage or access. That precarity is both immoral & economically risky.
2020 students:

Pre-2020 course: Did you know that a central tension in the history of US public health law and practice has always been protecting the freedom of individuals and protecting the health of the public?
2020 Students:

Pre-2020 course: Our therapeutic system is, and has always been, a pluralistic medical marketplace, w/ multiple modes of understanding the body in sickness & in health existing alongside one another, not necessarily or even commonly in contradictory ways.
2020 Students:

Pre-2020: The Burden of Disease is a concept which can help us recognize that there are many costs of illness, far beyond those related to paying providers. Like lost wages. Or lost productivity in essential sectors. Or even emotional costs of death & illness.
2020 Students: