Healthcare Systems Are Confusing. Human Stories Show Us Why to Care.

To end 2025, we assigned each reporter in the WW newsroom to pick two stories by a colleague that stood out in 2025. We then had the recipient of the compliment pass it on—but not before penning an update to the tales. Here’s the first of these stories.

“SNAP Judgments”

Oct. 22

Why Joanna Hou loved it: Health care is a beat that is often convoluted and can quickly become impenetrable. But when Andrew writes about it, I feel concepts I otherwise wade through come to me clearly.

In his story about 26-year-old Keyontay Wallace, Andrew paints the complicated picture of a man fighting against the state. Andrew is a reporter who genuinely enjoys getting to know the people he writes about. That makes them all the more human and, as a reader, makes me care about the problem that much more. It’s one thing to tell me that Oregon has one of the nation’s highest error rates distributing benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It’s another to ground me in the life of one person who’s been affected by that so I understand the scale of the damage that much more. In short, he gives me reason to care.

Killer detail: While not the thesis of any story, a good description can bring a source to life. Andrew’s a master at finding more color. (Take it from someone who sits next to him and hears when he’s lined up a good interview with a friend or family member of a source.) The product of that hard work is on display in this story:

“Wallace, described by his mother as a ‘geeky-type kid,’ wore a Back to the Future sweatshirt and sorted through legal documents and bank statements on his phone. His wife’s cat Winston scurried about the floor, knocking toys to and fro.”

Andrew Schwartz on what’s happened since: Keyontay Wallace’s fight goes on; his case awaits oral argument later this winter. Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Human Services, the state’s SNAP administrator, has begun expanding work and other requirements for thousands of SNAP recipients, while cutting other beneficiaries from the rolls entirely, in an effort to comply with President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This is easier said than done. It’s not just everyday people who are having a hard time making sense of emerging bureaucratic requirements. After the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued (at best) highly ambiguous guidance about the sorts of immigrants states should boot from SNAP, Oregon co-led a lawsuit that prompted the feds to draft another document that was a bit more clear.