Medicare for All

The American Dental Association (ADA) – the largest association of dental professionals in the country – are fighting against the proposal to add dental benefits to Medicare. We talk about the politics of ADA opposition to healthcare, and also hear from seniors themselves about what it’s like to go without needed dental care. Dental care is not part of health insurance for most A...

Are the German and Dutch health insurance systems really private? What would it actually take to transition to a social insurance model? Once and for all, we debunk the myth that we can “build on the current public-private healthcare system” to achieve universal coverage.  Show Notes Ben and Stephanie discuss Healthcare-NOW’s recently-completed comprehensive comparison of pu...

With the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine receiving full approval from the FDA, and Moderna shortly behind, prepare for an unprecedented wave of drug advertising! This could have a positive impact with regards to vaccination rates, but drug advertising in the U.S. has a dark, deadly history. Joined by guest co-host Gillian Mason, we cover the surprising reasons our airwaves and social media are saturated w...

United Healthcare, the largest insurer in the US, announced this May that they may start denying claims from the ER if it turned out the visits were not actual emergencies. Like almost everything in our healthcare system, this policy doesn’t actually make sense on a moral or even a financial level. We discuss the surprisingly long history of this “new” policy, its implications and impact, and the...

Last podcast, we discussed expanding and improving Medicare, and since then there are a couple of major updates on the budget moving through Congress, with implications for the M4A movement! We also discuss the history of expanding and improving Medicare (or degrading, in the case of privatization). Show Notes Last podcast, we discussed expanding and improving Medicare – way back 2 weeks ago...

Congress has an opportunity to make real steps towards Medicare for All this week. We go over the 4 proposed reforms that would expand Medicare, what’s at play and what’s at stake, the opposition to Medicare Expansion – if you can believe it – there IS opposition to giving seniors dental care – and what you can do to help pressure our legislators to fight! Show Notes Ben in Bosto...

We’re joined by L.A. Kauffman, author of How to Read a Protest: the Art of Organizing and Resistance . L.A. Kauffman was the mobilizing coordinator for some of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history — the massive Iraq antiwar protests of 2003 and 2004 — and has played key roles in many other movements and campaigns. Her book is about the role of marches and rallies in social m...

Stephanie and Ben discuss who developed the vaccine; who is profiting from it; and the fight for global vaccine equity on this episode with guests David Mitchell of Patients for Affordable Drugs and Andrew Goldstein , a public hospital primary care doctor, assistant professor of medicine at NYU, activist, and organizer with the Free the Vaccine and People’s Vaccine campaigns. Show Notes Who...

62% of people now have a positive opinion of drug companies, up from 32% in 2020. What’s responsible for the sudden shift, and do pharmaceutical companies deserve this newfound adoration? We’re joined by Shannon Rotolo , co-founder of Pharmacists for Single Payer and a clinical pharmacy specialist at the University of Chicago Medicine, to debunk industry lies about research and develop...

In our inaugural mailbag episode, Rose Roach – Executive Director of the Minnesota Nurses – joins us to answer your questions about how Medicare for All would save money and impact rural hospitals, how to answer to pushback on cost, talking to conservatives about Medicare for All, the political landscape, petitions as a base-building tool, and more! Show Notes Ben and Stephanie are joi...

We discuss Biden’s American Families Plan proposal , which Biden unveiled in his first State of the Union address last week (spoiler: it’s rather underwhelming) and the industry lobbying that made it happen. Then we discuss the proposal to expand Medicare that came from Reps and Senators – both progressives and moderates – and what it may signify in the fight for Medicare for All. Show...

We talk with Ben Palmquist from Partners for Dignity & Rights about a new anti-single payer bill in the Florida state legislature that would require a two-thirds supermajority to pass a single payer bill in the state . We segue into a larger conversation about the various opposition groups that have sprung up against Medicare for All and how the Florida bill is part of a trend of attacks on bo...

In January, the Campaign for New York Health made single payer history in the United States: the bill secured the support of a majority of co-sponsors in both chambers of the New York State legislature. Campaign organizers Ursula Rozum and YuLing Koh Hsu join us to discuss how NY got here and the very real chance to win Medicare for all at the state level! Show Notes The Campaign for New York Heal...

Rep. Pramila Jayapal re-introduced the Medicare for All bill last week with a record 112 original cosponsors – up now to 114. We talk about surprise sign-ons, powerful stories from the cosponsoring Reps, the first national endorsement of a hospital CEO, and the epic organizing effort that got us to this stage! Show Notes Representative Pramila Jayapal introduced H.R.1976 on March 17th, with...

We’re joined by Stephanie Kang, Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Health Policy Director, to discuss the upcoming 2021 Medicare for All bill, which will be shortly reintroduced in Congress. Kang also discusses changes made to the membership rules of the Progressive Caucus, and the most effective way to lobby your legislator during COVID! Show Notes We are excited to speak with Stephanie Kang, DrPH, MS, the H...

In the House, we have about half of the cosponsors we need to pass Medicare for All. Democrats who are not currently cosponsors (and constitute the other half we need to win) represent districts that are whiter and wealthier than the districts we’ve already won. What does this mean for our movement and how do we organize in this next phase? Show Notes Ben and Stephanie provide an update on the Med...

Is the supposedly “private” Netherlands healthcare system a model for the US? And what would it take, politically and in terms of concrete policy, to transition to this system? Dr. Kieke Okma , an expert on healthcare systems around the world, joins us to discuss how exactly the Dutch healthcare system works (to start: its 80% publicly financed), the nature and extent of the privatization re...

This week we chat with Dr. Bita Amani , an epidemiologist and Associate Professor for Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and Lead Co-Chair of the COVID-19 Taskforce on Racism and Equity which is housed in the UCLA Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice, and Health. We talk about how health played a role in the invention of race, and what structural racism in our healthcare...

Public Citizen’s Eagan Kemp joins us as we dive into the history of the individual mandate (spoiler: it’s a conservative idea), why it disproportionately punishes low-income people, and how progressive taxation under a single payer plan would be much more equitable than our current flat premium system. We look back at how such a regressive idea came to be championed by Democrats, and then forward...

This is how intertwined the Medicare for All and public mail movements are: if we had a national single payer system in place for the last decade, the USPS would be running a surplus. Steve DeMatteo of the American Postal Workers Union joins us to discuss the surprising connections between the postal service and our healthcare system, the political and financial obstacles that the USPS has faced u...

This week we host Dr. Monika Dutt, Board member of Canadian Doctors for Medicare and a public health and family physician in Nova Scotia. She fills us in on the historic legal challenge to the Medicare program that was just decided by the Supreme Court of British Columbia . The plaintiff, a for-profit surgery clinic, sought to allow patients to pay more for quicker treatment; it would ha...

Barbara DiPietro is the Senior Director of Policy at the National Health Care for the Homeless Council . She joins us this week to talk about what homelessness looks like in the United States, the wildly disporportionate incidence of COVID-19 in people currently experiencing homelessness, and how the dual crises of rising unemployment and insurance loss are making people more at-risk for becoming...

University of Massachusetts economist Gerald Friedman talks about his recent debate at the Soho Forum with Sally Pipes, a leading figure in the conservative anti-single payer movement. He breaks down the major lines of attack used by the right against Medicare for All, including wait times, horror stories, and free market ideology. Show Notes This week we welcome Professor Gerald (Jerry) Friedman...

Chelsea has had 66 doctor appointments to manage her enduring coronavirus symptoms, which are appearing in almost every system of her body. She discusses the support group that she started to connect people struggling with the physical, mental, logistical, and financial struggles of COVID long haulers. The experience has turned her into a Medicare for All supporter; listen to her reflect on what i...

Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator for the Labor Campaign for Single Payer , joins us again to take a deep dive into the recent history of Medicare for All organizing within the labor movement, including the political calculations made during the failed Clinton health reform push, the changing landscape for unions through the Affordable Care Act , labor’s role in the creation of the center-left Hea...