Nothing melts our hearts like a health policy valentine. Readers made us swoon this season, writing poetic lines about prescription drug pricing, medical debt, primary care shortages, and more. 

Here are some of our favorites, starting with the grand prize winner and first runner-up, whose entries were each turned into a cartoon by staff illustrator Oona Tempest. 

1st Place

Darling, this Valentine’s Day,let’s grab our passportsand fly away to someplace,where the same drugs cost a fractionof what they do in the States.

— Jennifer Reck 

Runner-Up 

I saw the doctor for a check,I had a lump in my right breast.Two weeks for the answer.It wasn’t cancer.So instead of death, I’m in debt.— Sunshine Moore Anger

Other Newsroom Favorites 

I was lost in the sadness and shock of you leaving, Tore my eyes away from my Morning Briefing How could you leave us, Why would you stray? When you are loved so dearly by the ACA? But I realized too late, ’Twas not to be, My primary care no longer loved me 

– Zac Aulson 

Parental love is beautiful And guess what makes it stronger A paid parental leave policy To stay with baby longer 

– Andrea Ferguson 

The paperwork flirts with my affections, A dance of denials, full of rejections. My heart yearns for you, my sweet medication, but insurance insists on prior authorization. 

– Sally Nix 

My love for you, darling, is blinding Like a clinical trial pre-findings But I fear we shall part And I’ll lose my heart Because of Medicaid unwinding! 

– Kara Gavin 

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.