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The new year is nothing to celebrate for American patients, whose health insurance plans generally reset on Jan. 1. During this early part of the year, families must pay their first several thousand dollars of healthcare costs entirely out of pocket until they meet their annual deductibles and their insurance kicks in. (Cynthia A Fisher, 1/8)

As patients, we no longer can just hope or depend on laws or rules to protect us. We can, however, speak up. We can all ask medical professionals to cover up with a face mask each time we visit doctors’ offices. (Jade Wu, 1/9)

President Joe Biden and most of the nation’s elected officials seem to have moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic — at least those who aren’t still trying to peddle the nonsense that a virus that has killed 1.1 million Americans was either tantamount to the flu or a concoction of the media and Dr. Anthony Fauci. (1/6)

I have always been careful during the pandemic and wondered where I might have caught it. Then I recalled I had a massage that Monday and the therapist was constantly coughing and was previously out of work sick. She was not wearing a mask, but the possibility of contracting COVID didn’t occur to me. (Brad Hopkins, 1/9)

I am a family nurse practitioner serving rural communities in West Tennessee and Kentucky. For most of my patients, access to healthy food is an everyday challenge. Like all healthcare providers, I recognize that poor diets are one of the top causes of premature death in the population, which is mostly due to obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. (Carla Davis, 1/9)