Tom Wilemon covers health from many angles at The Tennessean. Two of these depict the impact on real people about political decisions regarding Medicaid expansion. The first captured the gut reaction of people after Gov. Bill Haslam announced that he was not moving forward with Medicaid expansion. The second looked at the impact on rural hospitals, explaining how failure to expand Medicaid would also restrict access to care for people with private insurance. Media across the state picked up the rural hospital story, which also spurred editorials. Nine days after the article ran, Haslam wrote a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius defending his stance and pitching a “Tennessee plan” that would be modeled after private insurance. The story about the miracle drug saving the life of the child born without bones connected with people. It generated 9,361 page views. Wilemon worked with the photographer and narrated an online video that generated 11,130 views. Wilemon spent months working on the Diabetes Hot Zone project. He spent Saturdays with Deonta Ridley and his grandmother, learning about their daily struggles and listening to their life stories. He explained how Deonta, who weighed nearly 400 pounds by his junior year in high school, was trying to avoid a family cycle of tragedy from obesity-related diseases. His story kicked off a series about health disparity in the inner-city neighborhoods of Nashville, where diabetes rates soar to more than double the Davidson County average.
