Ted Roelofs of Kentwood, has been a general assignment reporter at Bridge since 2012 and has written extensively on healthcare in that time as well as prison and juvenile justice reform. Roelofs spent nearly three decades at the Grand Rapids Press where he covered politics, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rural poverty and mental illness among the homeless. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. Reach Ted at ted.roelofs@gmail.com
John Engler called rape and harassment claims by women prisoners “baseless” and “without merit” when he was Michigan goveronor. He was wrong. The state eventually paid $100 million to more than 500 women assaulted by male prison guards. Engler was named interim president of Michigan State in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal.
Rural counties in Michigan and poor cities like Detroit are at the bottom for flu immunization
If K-12 achievement in Michigan were a trendline, it is clearly pointing the wrong direction. By just about any measuring stick, the state is losing the race to educational excellence.
Some 1.5 million students attend some 3,000 public schools in Michigan. As academic performance has lagged, competing school reform proposals have sprouted like Michigan summer corn.
A commonly shared premise among economic experts: a well-educated work force is key to high-wage jobs and prosperity in the 21st century.
Michigan’s economy has long centered around manufacturing — especially autos. But reliance on a single industry produces boom and bust cycles.
If Michigan’s nearly 10 million residents received a collective physical exam, the result would be a mixed bag – and likely a frown from the doctor.
In 2010, an estimated 1.2 million Michigan residents had no health insurance. By 2016, that fell to approximately 527,000. But, as of this writing in early 2018, the future of health care is unclear.
For more than a quarter century, policy makers have tinkered with Michigan’s social safety net. Whether reforms have improved the state’s welfare system remains a matter of ongoing debate.
Take a drive along Michigan’s rural roads and you will encounter treasures we know as Pure Michigan. But rural Michigan holds other, often hidden, stories… Poverty, uneven medical care and lack of high-speed Internet access. Young adults continue to leave rural communities for jobs elsewhere.
It’s a question fundamental to democracy in Michigan: How open and accountable is our state government? On a variety of fronts, the answers are troubling.
Examining the attorney general office’s lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency and fight for lower taxes
A closer look at a Democratic candidate for governor’s vow to achieve universal health care in Michigan, and perhaps nationally.
Michigan multiple sclerosis patients face a looming crisis in how to pay for medications that can cost upwards of $80,000 a year
After federal funds lapse for a popular program, insurance for more than 100,000 lower-income children is in limbo.
Households, students and small business in much of rural Michigan struggle with slow Internet
A small fiber optic firm near Grand Rapids fills in the broadband gap for rural Michigan families
Looking to the 2018 governor’s race, some progressive Democrats worry about a repeat of how Michigan fell to Donald Trump.
Residents in Kent County were exposed for decades to contaminated water, traced to waste dump belonging to Wolverine Worldwide. The Rockford company has struggled to explain its slow response.
The state’s Republican House members have received strong backing from the NRA. Would their vote to ban so-called bump stocks imperil that support?
