Rural health care is in crisis. Telehealth can help.

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Rural health care has been in crisis mode for decades due to a wide range of issues from distance to care to provider shortages and budget shortfalls. Rural residents may have to travel up to twice as far to access a hospital than those in urban areas. Staffing shortages mean that even when they do arrive they’re less likely to find the correct specialist. The American Medical Association reported that about 65 percent of rural areas have a shortage of primary care physicians. The list goes on, and despite multiple grants or special designations designed to help close these gaps, the issues persist. The reality is, rural areas need a range of options to better serve their communities. One that’s working right now is the use of telehealth to supplement care. The trouble is, telehealth is frequently overlooked and underfunded, but if used correctly, proponents say it could be a game changer for rural communities, where about 20 percent of Americans live.

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Thanks to our sponsor, T-Mobile: http://t-mobile.com/FirstResponders. T-Priority - a 5G network experience made for first responders.

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Sources and further reading:

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For more on telehealth’s effectiveness:

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https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9392842/

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https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/telehealth-health-it

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https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8430850/

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https://www.ruralhealth.us/blogs/2024/06/how-telemedicine-provides-unique-care-in-rural-settings

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For more about the barriers for health care access in rural areas:

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https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/healthcare-access

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https://www.ruralhealth.us/about-us/about-rural-health-care

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https://nihcm.org/publications/rural-health-addressing-barriers-to-care

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https://healersandpatients.web.unc.edu/2024/04/socioeconomic-and-systemic-barriers-in-rural-healthcare/

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https://www.ruralhealth.us/blogs/2025/06/rural-physician-burnout-and-staffing-shortage-impact-in-2025

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https://www.abpsus.org/emergency-physician-shortages-worsening-in-rural-america/

How much money is too much?

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In today’s episode, political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns tells Sean that we need to cap the amount of wealth a person can accumulate. They talk about how extreme inequality affects democracy, the role of money in politics, and why limiting personal wealth benefits everyone, including the super rich.

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This episode originally aired in January 2024.

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Thanks to our sponsor, T-Mobile: http://t-mobile.com/FirstResponders. T-Priority - a 5G network experience made for first responders.

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A third of the US population lives in wildfire risk zones. And the fire season is only growing.

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Why is that?

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Climate change and the increase of the wildland urban interface (WUI) are two key components. Wildfires are now happening year round, and they’re taking a toll on the wildland fighters, especially in rural America. In this video, we look at how these first responders are being affected by this wildfire evolution and what communities that live in close proximity to wildfire zones can do to better protect themselves.

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Our sponsor has no editorial influence over how we report our stories, but their support makes videos like these possible.

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Sources and further reading:

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Wildfires and Climate Change

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https://science.nasa.gov/earth/explore/wildfires-and-climate-change/

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Updates to Wildfire Risk to Communities reveal 115 million people living with high wildfire risk

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https://headwaterseconomics.org/natural-hazards/updates-to-wildfire-risk-to-communities/

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Fire-evolved: A conversation with Jordan Thomas on fire suppression and prescribed burning in the megafire era

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https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/fire-evolved/

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When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World by Jordan Thomas

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https://sites.prh.com/when-it-all-burns

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Defensible Space - Practical ways to protect your home from wildfire.

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https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace

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Support our work. Become a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/memberships

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Subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications (🔔) so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO

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Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com.

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America has a hard time building stuff. Roads. Trains. Bridges. Housing.

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Everything takes seemingly forever. Meanwhile, China seems to have no trouble at all: high-speed rails, solar panels, electric cars, bridges, ports, all churned out at breakneck speed.

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Why is that?

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Sean's guest is Dan Wang, author of the new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. They discuss the policies and mindset that allow China to tackle remarkable feats of engineering, the advantages and drawbacks of America’s "lawyerly society," and what China and America must learn from each other.

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Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com.

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A loose movement of radical intellectuals is driving American politics. They’re called the “New Right,” and they share a basic hostility to American liberal democracy, a real desire to fundamentally overhaul it, and real influence in the White House. But why do they think that? How much influence do they really have? And what would a response to their rising prominence look like?

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Today’s guest is Laura Field, a political theorist who’s spent a lot of time in the conservative intellectual world cataloging the wild world of far-right thinking for her book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right.

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She speaks with guest host Zack Beauchamp, author of Vox newsletter On The Right, about why ordinary Americans should really, definitely, and absolutely care what a handful of thinkers are putting out on obscure Substacks and YouTube channels.

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Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO

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Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com.

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