Benjamin Day and Gillian Mason of Healthcare-NOW break down everything you need to know about the social movement to make healthcare a right in the United States. Medicare for All!
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Listeners, the Medicare for All Podcast has reached an important milestone that all political content creators dream of – we got clipped in an attack ad against one of our favorite people! As we’ve been covering for the last few months, candidates all around the country are campaigning on Medicare for All, which means that Republicans and corporate Dems are freaking the f*** out and trying to figure out how to make universal healthcare look like a bad thing. Friend of the Pod and US Senate Candidate Abdul El Sayed has been getting his fair share of the heat for making Medicare for All the cent
The national political media has been in a frenzy this week about friend-of-the-pod Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate primary victory in Michigan! Sayed made Medicare for All the centerpiece of his campaign, and at the polls, over 700,000 Michiganders got behind that vision of healthcare justice. But there’s another Medicare for All story unfolding in Michigan – the campaign to win a statewide universal healthcare system in Michigan as a stepping stone to national Medicare for All. Michigan State Representative Carrie Rheingans is leading the charge for universal healthcare in Michigan and organizing wi
When the U.S. Congress wants to get together, they don’t just check the shared Google calendar for a time when nobody’s using the House floor. Scheduling when or if a bill will ever get discussed or voted on is entirely up to the majority party. These days, that means that lawmakers outside the MAGAverse can’t do some pretty basic parts of their jobs like holding hearings. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has responded with a series of alternative “shadow” hearings on topics like healthcare – you know, life or death stuff that Republicans never seem to get around to talking about. Medicare
Today we’re talking moral injury and how it’s impacting our doctors and the healthcare we get from them. What’s moral injury? Well, you may not have heard the term before, but trust us, if you’ve been watching The Pitt, you’ve already gotten a taste! Moral injury is the trauma that happens when someone knows the right thing to do but is prevented from doing it on a regular basis thanks to factors beyond their control. Researchers coined the term to describe combat veterans experiencing PTSD because they had been forced to do things in war that ran contrary to their sense of morality, but more
This episode, we’re live at the Texas Democratic Party Convention, where Gillian is battling heat stroke while talking with folks about why we need Medicare for All and how we’re using grassroots organizing to build the power to win it! In the past, Medicare for All might have been a tough sell in Texas, but things are very different these days, as the Lone Star state turns from red to a distinctly bluish purple and Texas voters grow sick and tired of having some of the worst healthcare in the country. And yes, it is just that bad — Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the nation,
As we record this, the New York Knicks just might be poised to make history and win their first NBA championship since 1973 (Go Knicks!), but we’re here today to talk about a potential win that could be even bigger for New York than the Knicks taking it all… the passage of The New York Health Act! The New York Health Act, currently working its way through the NY state legislature, would guarantee high-quality, comprehensive healthcare to every single New Yorker, and – it turns out – save families, counties, cities, schools, and taxpayers billions of dollars! We’ve got two of the leaders of the
The fight for our health is heating up this summer! Across the country, folks are getting ready for a summer of action to demand real justice in our healthcare system. At Healthcare NOW, we’re calling it No Surrender Summer, and it’s all kicking off with Seven Days in June, a national week of action against healthcare cuts. Seven Days In June was conceived by iconic activist Cleve Jones. Cleve is the man who started the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which began with one square in 1985, became a key tool in educating the public about the AIDS epidemic, and is now the largest public folk art project in h
We usually stick to the healthcare news here, but this time, we’re covering a story happening right in our own backyard that could have huge public health consequences. Corpus Christi, Texas is about to be the first American city to run out of water, which threatens the health and wellbeing of the entire city, and especially the folks who are already in precarious health situations. Today we’re talking to local activist Isabel Araiza about what’s happening in Corpus, why we let big businesses put a price tag on our public goods, and why this isn’t just a Texas problem. PLUS, the latest healthc
Content Warning: This episode is somehow even swearier than usual. War is hell. Mostly because it kills people indiscriminately and disrupts the lives of huge groups of people, but also because it costs so much money that could be spent on saving lives. Now, after a year of hearing that our country is so hard up for money that we need to make massive cuts to Medicaid and other public health programs, we’re at war in the middle east AGAIN, racking up unnecessary deaths and a massive tab. Linda Bilmes at the Kennedy School said that the cost of the war would definitely reach a trillion dollars,
It’s primary season, y’all! Today I’m joined by Abdul El Sayed — doctor, public health expert, and candidate for the Democratic party nomination in Michigan to talk about healthcare in this election and on the campaign trail! https://www.youtube.com/live/gYy53RAC8Zk?si=AtCEyUq8634waWlA To read more about Abdul and the race for US Senate in Michigan, you can check out his campaign page. You can find more information about his book, Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide here on Goodreads! Follow & Support the Pod! Don’t forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on A
Friends, I've got a question for you: how are you doing these days, mental-health-wise? Sometimes on the Medicare for All podcast we can get so busy edutaining about healthcare inequity that we forget to take a pause to check in and make sure we're all OK. What's that you say? You too are feeling a little... unwell these days? Us too! It's an objectively terrible moment in history, we're entering life under fascism, and all the cool people and things we care about are getting disappeared or DOGEd. When we win Medicare for All, we're all going to be able to get the mental health support we need
At Healthcare NOW, we’re used to getting push-back from folks who don’t believe in Medicare for All, and we always expect to hear from those folks – but this episode is about something different. When we announced our annual national Medicare for All Strategy Conference is happening this November, we got some push-back – not about our fight for healthcare justice, but about our choice of venue. Some of our supporters were upset that we’re going to be gathering in a Red State – ok, arguably the king of the Red States: Florida. We’ve gotten emails from folks who won’t attend on principle because
Anyone who’s been on the internet and wants to preserve their sanity knows one, eternal truth: Don’t read the comments section. The comments, as we all know, are where our better angels go to die – where we forget our humanity and type out the ugliest, scariest stuff we were apparently thinking all along? Well, today, against our better judgement, we are going to disregard best practice and dig in to what people are saying in the comments about healthcare. Because how are we ever going to win over the people if we don’t know what the people have to say? We tasked our researcher, Ashley Schultz
:::CONTENT WARNING::: This episode contains graphic discussions of genocide. Here at the Medicare for All Podcast, we are usually focused on the US, but the fight for universal access to healthcare is one that stretches way beyond our borders. Today we take a global perspective and check in with a group of doctors who are putting their lives on the line to address the serious devastation happening right now in Gaza and its impact on the health of Palestinians living through that devastation. We’re joined by the founders of Doctors Against Genocide to talk about how a political conflict turns i
We’re talking about Medicaid folks, the public healthcare system meant to be our social safety net for anyone who can’t afford private insurance and doesn’t have access to healthcare from an employer. I’m sure most of you are aware of Medicaid — but what you might not know is just how many of our friends and neighbors land in that safety net every year. Over 70 Million people in this country rely on the Medicaid program for basic healthcare. That’s 20% of Americans, or one out of every five people you meet. That means that even if you are not on Medicaid, the $880 Billion in cuts to the progra
Whether you are a party planner or a community organizer, you know that since the pandemic, it has been REALLY hard to get folks out of the house. It makes sense: the news is depressing, our screen-based scrolling culture is alienating, and our politics are polarizing to the point where a casual conversation can easily escalate to throwing hands. That being said, this month has been different! In response to Trump 2.0, we’re seeing an uprising of activism in the streets, with millions of Americans participating in Hands Off protests and other actions to fight back against Trump’s attacks on ev
For this episode, we’re going back to a familiar villain from podcast-past because unfortunately, healthcare villains have a habit of staying relevant. This is a guy who made his fame by cozying up to Oprah while schilling diet pills, supplements, and medical conspiracy theories – it’s Doctor Oz, who is now Trump’s nominee for Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That’s right, the man who has previously claimed that there are deadly levels of arsenic in apple juice, that most olive oil is fake, that “Reparative Therapy” can cure homosexuality, and that hydroxychloroquine
Listeners, what were you doing in 2004? Perhaps you were strolling down the street in low rise jeans, Uggs, and a Livestrong bracelet listening to Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” Or maybe you were sitting in a movie theater ready to have your mind blown by Ashton Kutcher’s tour de force performance in The Butterfly Effect. Well, the folks joining us on this week’s episode of our podcast may have missed some of that stuff because they were too busy building a movement for healthcare justice! 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of Healthcare NOW, the national organization fighting for Medicare for All that brin
Well, the voters have spoken, and despite all of our recommendations to the contrary, they seem to have voted for Trump. Yeah, we’re pretty sad/scared/pissed off/trying to cope by dissociating and stress eating as well. Regardless, once again, it’s Trump’s America and we’re just living (or dying) in it. We know from experience that a Trump presidency is bad for our health, but now he has a surprising new ally in making our lives shorter and more dangerous: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhwR1W_x-TA Show Notes RFK is a former presidential candidate and critic of Trump, an
We spend a lot of time griping about the insidious power of corporate health insurance in our healthcare system here. But you would expect that taxpayer funded public programs for our most vulnerable friends and neighbors are free from profiteering right? Sadly, no. Medicaid - the public program that serves the lowest income Americans, plus some people with disabilities, and a lot of the country’s long-term care - has been extensively privatized in most states. Hoping to trim budgets, most states have outsourced Medicaid recipients to “Medicaid Managed Care Organizations,” which are actually p
In case you’ve been asleep or under a rock for the past six months, we need to let you know two things: First, Kendrick won his beef with Drake, and second, there is a presidential election coming up. Like any presidential election year, everyone’s so focused on the big showdown at the top of the ticket, but that means that a lot of the local and state races, congressional races, and referenda that will make up most of your ballot are getting ignored. Just because Anderson Cooper isn’t covering your city’s mayoral contest or your state’s Railroad Commissioner race doesn’t mean those elections
The United States is unique among industrialized nations. Lucky for us, we can accumulate medical debt! Most industrialized and some developing nations have national healthcare programs that guarantee care to their residents. But we in the richest nation in the world have the freedom to get insurance through the free market, and go into debt when it doesn’t cover the care we need! USA USA USA! According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), while over 90% of Americans have health insurance, we owe at least $220 billion in medical debt. Approximately 14 million people owe more than $1,000, and
Usually on the Medicare for All Podcast, we talk about people who want healthcare but can’t get it, but today we’re talking about people getting healthcare they have specifically refused: folks who have been involuntarily committed. For plenty of our listeners, the idea of being held against your will at a psychiatric institution feels like a nightmare from another time – something out of gothic fiction or horror movies set far in the past. But for folks struggling with mental illness in 21st century America, the terrifying prospect of psychiatric commitment is alive and well. In fact, a 2020
If there’s one thing everyone is talking about these days, it’s JD Vance’s affinity for couches. But if there are two things everyone is talking about, it’s Vance’s couches and Project 2025. You may be wondering, what is this mysterious project, and what does it have to do with me? Well, it turns out, a lot! Project 2025 is the right-wing map to a terrifying future, and if its proponents have their way, the future of healthcare is especially grim. Today, we’re doing a deep dive into what this thing is and how it could change healthcare as we know it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4kYQ-Hh5pY
It’s our 100th episode folks, and we are celebrating the only way we know how – by sharing our predictions of the grim, apocalyptic future that surely awaits us if we fail to get our healthcare system together! That’s right, we’re talking about the next pandemic, and if experts are right, it’s coming sooner than we think. In addition to several somewhat less familiar pathogens on the rise this summer, COVID is back, and this time it’s FLiRTy. Today we’ll go into some of the outbreaks currently threatening to explode into our next global disaster and explore how prepared our for-profit healthca
