Sen. Julie Mayfield

Registered nurses rally outside Mission Hospital in Asheville.

Some states back hospital mergers despite record of service cuts, price hikes

BY: - September 7, 2023

Some illnesses and injuries — say, a broken ankle — can send you to numerous health care providers. You might start at urgent care but end up in the emergency room. Referred to an orthopedist, you might eventually land in an outpatient surgery center. Four different stops on your road to recovery. But as supersized […]

Sen. Julie Mayfield discusses voting rights, abortion access and healthcare for transgender youth

BY: - July 3, 2023

It’s been a year of sustained controversy at the North Carolina General Assembly. Having reestablished narrow supermajorities in both houses, Republicans have revived a bevy of bills previously vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper on an array of divisive subjects – from abortion rights and LGBTQ equality to public education and the rules that govern voting […]

NC Senate Republican elections ideas endanger early voting access, critics say

BY: - June 15, 2023

Voting rights advocates warned that changes Republican senators seek to impose on North Carolina put counties on track to dramatically shrink early voting locations and hours.  Under the Republicans’ proposal, Democratic and Republican legislative leaders would make equal appointments to local boards of election and the state Board of Elections.  Republicans said the remade elections […]

ER doctors call private equity staffing practices illegal, seek to ban them

BY: - December 22, 2022

Physicians call on Attorney General Stein to investigate growing national trend A group of emergency physicians and consumer advocates in multiple states are pushing for stiffer enforcement of decades-old statutes that prohibit the ownership of medical practices by corporations not owned by licensed doctors. Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia (including North Carolina) have rules on their books against the so-called corporate practice of medicine.

COMMENTARY

If it’s Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson must be embarrassing the state again

BY: - November 30, 2021

It’s always a little risky to try and psychoanalyze or diagnose the mental well-being of a public figure from a distance, but one thing is undeniable about North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson: the man has a serious case of homophobia — what Merriam Webster defines as “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against […]

Who derailed Dionne Delli-Gatti’s confirmation as DEQ Secretary? No one wants to own it.

BY: - June 3, 2021

Dionne Delli-Gatti waited outside the gallery entrance of the Senate Chamber Thursday afternoon to learn whether she would still have a job by the end of the day.  She carried a keychain that her 8-year-old son had given her earlier this year after Gov. Roy Cooper nominated her to lead the NC Department of Environmental […]