Solutions for the Underaffiliated

Solving the rural hospital dilemma to address aging and isolation

How do we take on the facts that health tends to be worse and demand for mental health services and the suicide rate are rising in rural communities?

The core healthcare challenges in rural communities are transportation because people have to travel to get care and many senior citizens can no longer drive, social isolation, ...

Disrupting the cycle of poverty with social supports.

Imagine not having food, no way to get to the grocery store, and not having a friend with a working car to get you there or to take your kids to school. That could happen every day to a family on Medicaid.

Imagine having an asthmatic child and not being able replace your carpet with solid flooring, so he misses school and you miss work t...

Why do we need any more proof that having basic necessities, access to care, and social support leads to better health in order to help poor people live healthier, less expensive and more productive lives?

We all know that poor people can’t afford deductibles and copays, lack food, gas for a car, struggle with rent, and don’t have a social network with the means to help them. Instead of seeing a doctor t...

Fires, floods, storms. Even if you’re not sure about whether carbon emissions are behind them, why not try something new for our kids just in case?

Let’s start with transportation since about 30 percent of United States greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector. That’s driven by Americans’ everyday use of cars, trucks, trains and planes. 

I spoke with Ned Ryan Doyle, a se...

Let’s use new federal infrastructure funds to improve life and protect cities from climate change, not just to create construction traffic from fixing roads, pipes and bridges.

How can we do better?

Solutions for the Underaffiliated spoke with Joe Kane, a Fellow at the Brookings Institution and economist, planner, and researcher. He works at the intersection of transportation, water, broadb...

Is corporate medicine leading to an over-priced, hollowed out healthcare system characterized by dissatisfied patients and fewer healthcare providers, fed up with poor working conditions?

We spoke with Dr. Mitch Li, an emergency physician and founder of Take Medicine Back, which advocates for taking back medicine from corporate interests.

Here are some highlights:

Suburban sprawl came with a price. Urban living can reduce housing costs, political divisiveness, and carbon emissions.

We spoke with Andy Paul, a founding member Affordable Asheville, a chapter YIMBY Action, a national organization dedicated to affordable housing.

Less affordable housing, needing a car, and policies that promote wealth-based segregation have led to homelessness, increased ...

America’s health crisis is about more than mental and physical conditions, and it costs even more than you think.

It will require  the seemingly impossible task of working together to make the United States healthy.

We spoke with Ted Smith, Associate Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and The Director, Center for Healthy Air, Water and Soil at the University of Louisville.

We are all better off when people can afford their homes. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are one way to expand affordable housing, but we need more homeowners to get on board.

Anna Zuevskaya, Executive Director, and Crystal Sheriff, Community Relations Manager, of the Asheville Buncombe County Land Trust explained the societal benefits of using community land trusts to provide affordable housing.

Health provider consolidation pushes up the cost of care for people with employer-based coverage. In the process, it drives people who can’t pay from their bank accounts to put off care or go into medical debt.

We talked with John Hargraves, Director of Data Strategy of the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), a non-profit, non-partisan organization focused on in Washington, D.C. It has a multi-payer, long...

Ann Marie Traylor, the Executive Director of the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) (www.eqilab.org), leads a team of volunteers who gather data to help stop chemicals from poisoning streams, bugs, amphibians, birds and so on up the food chain.

When it rains, water carries fertilizer, salt, and other chemicals from industrial and small farms, roofs, roads, parking lots and leaky sewage pipes to stream...

Does the current healthcare system work for you?

If you can pay, your health is likely to improve or at least not get worse. 

Otherwise, premiums, deductibles, and costs of drugs and care are so high that many people put off care until they are eligible for Medicare, or they go into medical debt.

To help make the case for change, Solutions for the Underaffiliated explored thre...

Watching the weather? It’s simpler and less expensive than you might think to outfit your home with solar power, reduce your reliance on energy companies, and help reduce carbon emissions. 

We still need energy companies, but the right action can drive a faster and smoother transition. Advocate for more competition in power generation from wind and solar power companies; expanded use of solar panels on h...