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  • Florida (Wo)Man Needs Healthcare: An Invitation to Our Conference!
    2025/09/26
    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 they refuse to go to (and this is a quote) the “Evil DeSantis State.” So today we’re joined by one of the leaders of Medicare for All Florida to dig into what’s happening in Florida, why we’re heading to the Sunshine State for our conference, and – most importantly – how you can join us this November 22&23rd to bring the fight to Red America. https://www.youtube.com/live/2PU2kuMoaJw?si=Sd1duyLhAXUoeqHG Consider this your official invite to our National Medicare for All Strategy Conference: Find out more and register here! Want to learn more about how Medicare for All activists are fighting to move forward toward healthcare justice amid constant assaults on public healthcare from their state government? Check out the Medicare for All Florida website! Follow & Support the Pod! Don’t forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform! This show is a project of the Healthcare NOW Education Fund! This show is a project of the Healthcare-NOW Education Fund! If you want to support our work, you can donate at here!
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    36 分
  • Bots, Trolls, & Haters
    2025/08/26
    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 -- the most chronically online of our followers, with digging through the dregs of the internet, and she’s here to talk about what she found. https://www.youtube.com/live/qsWogMDDbWw?si=exWiYo0B5L5BTVgC Follow & Support the Pod! Don’t forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform! This show is a project of the Healthcare NOW Education Fund! This show is a project of the Healthcare-NOW Education Fund! If you want to support our work, you can donate at our website, healthcare-now.org.
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    56 分
  • Health Crisis in Palestine!
    2025/08/02
    :::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 into a public health crisis, and what kind of action we can take to stop it. Our guests are Dr. Karameh Hawash-Kuemmerle, a pediatric neurologist in Boston, Massachusetts, and Dr. Nidal Jboor, an internist in Dearborn, Michigan, who together co-founded of Doctors Against Genocide (DAG), “a global coalition of healthcare workers dedicated to succeeding where global governments have failed in confronting Genocide.” https://www.youtube.com/live/sTCSO2kFeA8?si=tCuiVlE3I7Co3HoC Want to support the incredible work of Doctors Against Genocide? Whether or not you're a doctor, you can join DAG and/or donate here! Follow & Support the Pod! Don’t forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform! This show is a project of the Healthcare NOW Education Fund! This show is a project of the Healthcare-NOW Education Fund! If you want to support our work, you can donate at our website, healthcare-now.org.
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    1 時間 2 分
  • Medicaid — They Cut; We Bleed!
    2025/06/23
    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 program proposed by congress will affect you or someone you love, and not in a good way. In fact, just today, researchers at Yale and UPenn released new research stating that the Trump cuts would cause over 51,000 additional Americans to die each year. For this episode, I’m joined by Jaron Benjamin, Deputy Chief of Campaigns from Popular Democracy to break down why we all need to care about stopping the cuts and act NOW, before it’s too late! https://www.youtube.com/live/I4xu6zglswc?si=OmFDD5gezpbwppNq We need YOU to join the fight to save Medicaid! Find out more about what you can do here! You can learn more about the great work happening at Popular Democracy here! Follow & Support the Pod! Don’t forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform! This show is a project of the Healthcare NOW Education Fund! This show is a project of the Healthcare-NOW Education Fund! If you want to support our work, you can donate at our website, healthcare-now.org.
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    48 分
  • Resistance 2.0!
    2025/05/16
    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 everything from migrant rights to Medicaid. What’s behind this second wave of Trump resistance? As per usual, it’s a lot of ordinary people deciding they can’t wait any longer for change. On today’s episode, I’m talking to the leaders taking action in my local Texas community to get some perspective on Resistance 2.0 and why it’s all kicking off right now! https://www.youtube.com/live/7OedeuSqD40?si=eXb6DqbW-5vz0LeS In this episode, Gillian talks with her favorite new activists from Indivisible Coastal Bend, the local Indivisible chapter in Corpus Christi, Texas. Ashley, Misty, and Stacie have always been concerned with politics, but the latest developments of the 2nd Trump Administration prompted them to take their concern to the streets and start organizing! Now these women are local leaders in the national uprising happening right now across the US, fighting against cuts to Medicaid and social security, the elimination of DEI, and the overall assault on Democracy. You can read more about the incredible work they've been doing here and here! This is an important moment for all of us in the healthcare justice movement to get together with our allies in the streets to stand up for our public healthcare and demand that we move forward toward universal healthcare, not backward, leaving even more folks out in the cold. So make sure to sign up for our Healthcare Now HEAT (Health Emergency Action Team) to get alerts about rapid response actions you can take to defend Medicaid, Medicare, the VA, reproductive healthcare, gender-affirming care, vaccines, the rights of healthcare workers, and more! Join the team here! Follow & Support the Pod! Don’t forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform! This show is a project of the Healthcare NOW Education Fund! This show is a project of the Healthcare-NOW Education Fund! If you want to support our work, you can donate at our website, healthcare-now.org.
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    45 分
  • Return to Oz
    2025/04/01
    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 cures COVID, is pretty close to running our largest public health systems. Today I’m talking with Dr. Diljeet Singh of Physicians for a National Health program about what that means for you and the country at large, and how we can do something about it! NOTE: At the Medicare for All Podcast, we’ve had a brief, unplanned hiatus due to pesky technical issues – and the fact that Trump is keeping us busy in our organizing work – but we are very excited to be back! I’m flying solo right now while my regular cohost Ben is saving the environment at his 9 to 5 organizing job, but that feels like important work as well, so we’re going to give him a pass and send him our love! https://www.youtube.com/live/3ZUE4sOTI_g?si=WGg97KnP-UxktIsu Our guest for this episode was the brilliant Dr. Diljeet Singh! She's a women’s health advocate, an integrative gynecologic oncologist, and the President of Physicians for a National Health Program. Dr. Singh received her medical degree from Northwestern University and her master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an obstetrics and gynecology residency at Johns Hopkins and a gynecologic oncology fellowship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. She completed her doctoral degree in public health on cost analysis at the University of Texas School of Public Health and an associate fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona. Dr. Singh and our friends at Physicians for a National Health Program are going all out to let folks know about the serious danger Dr. Oz poses to our national health! Check out the videos from their Dr. Oz Shadow Hearing below: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO8yDO3B42TdHs6GC-PcLez2ZHfZ4CfTN&si=Q3YMJR1IEvr9uHX1 Even though it is likely that the Senate will make it official later this month, as of April 1st, Dr. Oz still hasn't been confirmed, so if you're listening to this in the next couple weeks, you may still be able to call your Senators to ask them to come to their senses! Reach their offices through the Capitol Hill switchboard: (202) 224-3121. Follow & Support the Pod! Don’t forget to like this episode and subscribe to The Medicare for All Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform! This show is a project of the Healthcare NOW Education Fund! This show is a project of the Healthcare-NOW Education Fund! If you want to support our work, you can donate at our website, healthcare-now.org.
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    42 分
  • 20 Years of Healthcare NOW!
    2025/03/27
    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 brings you your favorite podcast! If you’re a regular listener, you probably know that I was the Executive Director of Healthcare NOW for 11 years, and Gillian is the current Executive Director, but today we’re taking it back to 2004 and talking with some of the OGs who started it all! This episode features some of our very favorite people -- the leaders in the healthcare justice movement who have made Healthcare NOW what it is today (the creator of your favorite podcast content!): Mark Dudzic is a longtime union organizer and activist. He served as national organizer of the Labor Party from 2003 to 2007 and was a cofounder of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer in 2009. He has been a member of the Healthcare Now board since its founding in 2004. Lindy Hern is the Chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo and President of the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology. She has been on the Healthcare NOW board since 2009 and is the author of “Single Payer Healthcare Reform: Grassroots Mobilization and the Turn Against Establishment Politics in the Medicare for All Movement." Donna Smith is an advocate for single payer, improved and expanded Medicare for all. Her journalism career included work as a stringer for NEWSWEEK magazine, editing and reporting for the Black Hills Pioneer in South Dakota, as well as appearances on CNN and Bill Moyers Journal, and as one of the subjects in Michael Moore's 2007 film, SiCKO. She worked for National Nurses United and traveled more than 250,000 miles advocating for health justice. She now serves as the National Advisory Board chair for Progressive Democrats of America. Walter Tsou is a Board Advisor to Physicians for a National Health Program and on the Board of HCN. He has been a long time single payer healthcare activist. Walter is a former Health Commissioner of Philadelphia and Past President of the American Public Health Association. Cindy Young has been a healthcare activist for over 40 years. She has served on the Health Care Now board since 2012. In her retirement, she serves as a Vice President for the California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA), whose principle goal is to establish a single payer system in California. If this episode doesn't give you your fill of Healthcare NOW history, you can always check out Lindy's book or this sweet tribute to our founder Marilyn Clement. And of course, if you want to keep up the good work of all these amazing folks, you can make a donation to support our work!
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    1 時間 3 分
  • MAHA: Getting to Know RFK Jr.
    2025/02/11
    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 expert falconer, an eater of roadkill, a source of shame for the entire Kennedy family, and a “superspreader” of false information about vaccines. And now he’s about to bring his mission to Make America Healthy Again to the masses as the Secretary of Health and Human Services for the entire USA. In this episode, we’re going to try to figure out what the hell that means. RFK Jr has some wild ideas about medicine and public health, making some strange connections between cause and effect in our health. Let’s play a game! We’ll give you some health outcomes, and you guess what RFK has said is the cause of the problem (or “problem” in several cases). (Sources: BBC, HuffPo, Daily Beast) Problem: Autism, cancer, autoimmune disorders, and ADHDCause: Vaccines! This assertion is primarily based on the fact that SOME earlier vaccines included a preservative thimerosal, a compound that contains mercury, even though it’s been debunked AND hasn’t been included in children’s vaccines since 2001. Problem: Arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid diseaseCause: Fluoride in drinking water! Problem: Fatness, depression, and cancerCause: Ultra Processed Foods Solution: Raw milk! Problem: AIDSCause: Not HIV! (See his book about Anthony Faucci) Problem: Increasing concentrations of bioavailable aluminum in the environmentCause: Chemtrails This one’s a trick question because in a 2016, a survey of scientists showed that most of them didn’t even believe that aluminum levels were increasing, let alone that chemtrails exist. Problem: Gay and Trans KidsCause: Pesticides (atrazine) in tap water. Amazing logic here: “[atrazine can] chemically castrate and forcibly feminize [frogs]... If it’s doing that to frogs, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing it to human beings as well.” Problem: COVID 19Cause: Chinese bioweapon. His logic (from a campaign video leaked to the NY Post): “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. We don’t know if it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic differential and the impact of that. We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons.” A heaping helping of anti-Asian racism with a side of antisemitism! Problem: RFK Jr’s own problems with memory loss and cognitionCause: He said in a 2012 divorce deposition, “a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.” Also, tuna fish. He hasn’t ever provided medical records to document this, but doctors say it might have happened? Despite the fact that he’s about to be nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. isn’t a doctor or a medical researcher. The brain worm explains a lot about RFK Jr’s thinking, but neural parasites aside, how did this guy get to be a “public health expert” to begin with? He started as a well-respected environmental lawyer. In 1984, he began volunteering with The Hudson River Fisherman's Association, later renamed “Riverkeeper,” which inspired the global “Waterkeeper” movement. He sued big polluters, helped formulate a model for sustainable development,
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    46 分