Medicare for All

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...

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...

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 Jone...

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...

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 progra...

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 ca...

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...

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 ven...

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...

:::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...

 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...

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...

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...

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 o...

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 surpris...

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 co...

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 th...

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! Acc...

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 f...

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 thei...

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 sum...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! For activists in the movement to make Medicare for All a reality, this is the week when we gather to plot, scheme, and kvetch. Welcome to the 2024 Annual Medicare for All Strategy Conference, “Healthcare Beyond the Ballot Box,” organized by Healthcare NOW! For those of you who are attending the conference right now, you are getting a sneak preview of...

We are in the middle of a resurgence of organized labor in the US. From Amazon workers to auto workers and grad students to baristas at Starbucks, everyone is getting in on the action! One of the big reasons workers are so hot to get that union card is because of… you guessed it, healthcare! Today we’re going to be talking union healthcare plans – how they work and how workers have managed to use...

The U.S. is wrestling with a massive mental health crisis – impacting young people in particular. Half of young adults and one-third of all adults report that they always feel anxious or have often felt anxiety in the past year. One-third of respondents could not get the mental health services they needed. Why? 80% say they couldn’t afford the cost and more than 60% said that shame and stigm...

We hear it over and over again – the private sector just does it better. Whether we’re talking education or healthcare or our criminal justice system, the default Republican (and sometimes Democratic) talking point is that competition in the marketplace allows the best ideas and best people (Elon Musk, lookin at you) to rise to the top and lead us to a utopian future (sponsored by Meta). But then...