The start of the 115th Congress has focused on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Legislators speak about repealing a policy, about political strategies. 

For me, as a doctor, as Baltimore City’s doctor, it’s about my patients and their lives.

Eight years ago, before the ACA, I treated a 36-year old man, a father of two toddlers. He stopped taking his seizure medications because insurance companies wouldn’t cover him. He had a choice: pay thousands of dollars a month, out of pocket, or ensure that his family had rent and food. As many others would have done, he chose his family, and let his medications lapse.

By the time he was brought to the ER, he had suffered a grand mal seizure. He was unconscious and continually seizing. We gave him medications. We put a breathing tube in. We did everything we could, but he never came out of the coma, and he died.

I think about him and his family when I hear discussions of the ACA. I think about the 40,000 people in my city who would be uninsured if not for the ACA. My patients tell me that they’re scared.

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Online grocery shopping brings convenience. But if it’s available to everyone, it’s also seen as one way to help people in food deserts get access to fresh food.

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Maryland’s inclusion earned praise from Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen.

“Unfortunately, 1 in 4 Baltimore City residents live in an area identified as a food desert,” she said. “This pilot will break down barriers and bring groceries to people, saving them time and money.”

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BALTIMORE, MD (January 6, 2017) — With temperatures predicted to fall into the teens with wind chill this weekend, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen today issued a Code Blue declaration for Baltimore City beginning Friday evening, January 6th through the morning of Monday, January 9th.

Taylor Kay was driving on Interstate 290, heading east near Chicago, when a car veered across lanes of traffic into the highway median.

"I thought, 'Something is wrong,'" the 26-year-old said. "So I get out of my car, and I see he's overdosing, with a needle still in his arm."

Kay recognized what was happening to the driver because it could have happened to her. She had used heroin for six years, until she was 24, and she herself has overdosed. She knew what to do.

"I go to my car and I get my Narcan, because I always have it with me," Kay said, referring to the brand name of the drug naloxone, which quickly reverses opioid overdoses. "Once I put the Narcan in him, it took about 20 seconds. … I was so scared that this kid was going to die."

He didn't; he woke up, Kay said. She called 911, and the paramedics who arrived later told her the driver had taken fentanyl — a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more potent than morphine.

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