Tag: Mayor Bill de Blasio

Cycling safety concerns grow in US cities

Volume 394       Number 10211     16 November 2019   
WORLD REPORT As more bicycle riding is encouraged for health and environmental reasons, an increase in cycling deaths is causing a public health dilemma in the USA. Susan Jaffe reports.

Photo by Susan Jaffe Copyright © 2019

A record number of cycling deaths in the USA is attracting scrutiny from the US Congress, city officials, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the government agency better known for investigating aeroplane crashes and other transportation disasters. …Last year, 859 cyclists were killed in road traffic crashes, the highest number in the USA since 1990, and a 6·3% increase since 2017, according to research from the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published last month.
…In a preliminary report issued last week, the NTSB recommended that public officials take several steps to reduce the number of cycling deaths. The last time it examined bicycle safety was 47 years ago. [Continued here]  
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NYC guarantees health care to all

 Volume 393, Number 10169   

26 January 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   The mayor of New York City is not counting on Congress for solutions to its health-care problems, Susan Jaffe reports.

By encouraging patients to seek primary and preventive care instead of more expensive emergency care, city officials expect to save money and keep people healthy. 
     “From this moment on, in New York City, everyone is guaranteed the right to health care—everyone”, declared New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as he unveiled his so-called NYC Care plan this month. People who cannot pay or are ineligible for health insurance—including undocumented immigrants—will be able to get the most comprehensive and affordable health coverage in the country, at little or no cost, the mayor said, speaking in both English and Spanish.  “This is a way of getting people health care here and now, regardless of what happens on the state or the federal level”. [Continued here.]  
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