Nothing melts our hearts like a well being coverage valentine. Readers made us swoon this season, writing poetic strains about prescription drug pricing, medical debt, major care shortages, and extra. 

Listed below are a few of our favorites, beginning with the grand prize winner and first runner-up, whose entries have been every changed into a cartoon by employees illustrator Oona Tempest. 

1st Place

Darling, this Valentine’s Day,let’s seize our passportsand fly away to someplace,the place the identical medication value a fractionof what they do within the States.

— Jennifer Reck 

Runner-Up 

I noticed the physician for a verify,I had a lump in my proper breast.Two weeks for the reply.It wasn’t most cancers.So as an alternative of dying, I’m in debt.— Sunshine Moore Anger

Different Newsroom Favorites 

I used to be misplaced within the unhappiness and shock of you leaving, Tore my eyes away from my Morning Briefing How might you allow us, Why would you stray? If you end up liked so dearly by the ACA? However I spotted too late, ’Twas to not be, My major care not liked me 

– Zac Aulson 

Parental love is gorgeous And guess what makes it stronger A paid parental depart coverage To stick with child longer 

– Andrea Ferguson 

The paperwork flirts with my affections, A dance of denials, filled with rejections. My coronary heart yearns for you, my candy medicine, however insurance coverage insists on prior authorization. 

– Sally Nix 

My love for you, darling, is blinding Like a scientific trial pre-findings However I concern we will half And I’ll lose my coronary heart Due to Medicaid unwinding! 

– Kara Gavin 

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