Columns

9/11 Reflections, 24 Years Later

Time stood still at 8:46 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, and I can still remember every single moment that followed. The sky was clear and blue that morning. It was the first year of my teaching career, my fifth day to be exact. I was just out of college, still living with my parents in a NYC suburb, and was as brighteyed and optimistic as they come. I was ready to make a difference and to change the world, one child at a time. I had spent years preparing for this moment, proud and overjoyed to finally be a teacher.

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The real-life ‘Giving Tree?’

I do believe if our family had a coat-of-arms, that the chinaberry tree would be worked into that scheme somehow. For the humble-yet-prolific tree seems to insert itself into just about all of our family deeds of note. One of my Daddy's first memories, when he was about six years old, was falling out of the chinaberry tree in his backyard.

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Daddy’s Stories

'I'm bored!' my almo st-nine-year-old daughter announced last week. And I thought to myself: 'Now, think of that not twenty-four hours since school was dismissed and this child is bored?' When we were little, my brothers and I, the words 'summertime' and 'boredom' did not belong together in the same sentence.

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LOOKING BACK

75 YEARS AGO MAY 27, 1949 Outfielder Jocko Norton will be playing his last game with the Auburn nine when the Tigers face the Alabama Crimson Tide on Drake Field in Auburn Friday and Saturday. A senior, Jocko has another year of eligibility.

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PBMs tactics limit, cost Alabamians affordable prescriptions

I believe an appropriate way to frame our understanding of the Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers is to briefly summarize who they are, what they do, and how we got to where we are today. PBMs initially emerged to help manage the prescription drug component of health insurance plans, handling tasks such as processing claims and managing the lists of covered medications. They acted as a third party to help provide Alabamians and their employers the access to affordable prescription medications. This design was well intended and did influence overall price leveraging and access to patented therapeutics.

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