Back in 2008, the TV show Breaking Bad asked a question that is still on a lot of Americans’ minds: How far would you go to pay for medical care? In Breaking Bad, the main character ends up building a meth empire to pay for his cancer treatment, which is a solution we don’t necessarily…

2013 was a big year — we had just survived 2012 (the year the Mayans thought the world was going to end), we were all doing the Harlem Shake on Vine, and — most importantly — our regular co-host Ben Day became the Executive Director of Healthcare NOW, the nation’s leading Medicare for All advocacy…

Starting on May 11, President Biden is ENDING the emergency COVID-19 regulations that have been in place since the start of the pandemic in January 2020. These regulations created (almost) a Medicare for All-type public funding system for vaccines, testing, and COVID-related care. While the pandemic itself is still raging, the end of the official…

Our guest today is Rebecca Wood. Rebecca lived all over Virginia before her relocation to Massachusetts. Rebecca worked with many organizations and offices on Capitol Hill. Her healthcare work includes rallies, protests, press conferences, and conventions. Most notable, she told her and daughter Charlie’s story at the introduction of Senator Sanders’ Medicare For All Act…

Like many of our episodes, this topic drives our hosts to use some salty language. Use your best judgment if you’re listening near someone with tender ears. Hike up your trousers and throw on some long socks. We’re getting into the weeds on this one. Ben and Gillian discuss the digitization of our healthcare system…

It’s a new year, which means everyone is coming out of the woodwork to make predictions about what’s in store for 2023. In this episode, we’re going to be making reckless, unverifiable claims about the future of the movement for healthcare justice, the public health crisis in this country, the political landscape, and yes –…

Listeners, how many times has this happened to you? You find a great doctor, you make an appointment, and you think everything is fine… until you get the dreaded call from the insurance company that your sweet new doc is “Out of Network.” Well, you aren’t alone – just in the past few months, limited…

The 2022 midterm elections are MOSTLY in the books – thank again Georgia, for the endless run-offs that keep on giving, every two years it seems like. You’ve heard the national narrative: Democrats did surprisingly well, given how parties in power usually take big losses during the mid-terms, and particularly when Biden has such low…

Everything is bigger in Texas, including medical bills and the uninsured population. The Lone Star state has the second-largest population in the country, and is among the fastest-growing as well, but all those people are stuck with THE worst healthcare system and very poor health outcomes as well. The uninsured rate is more than twice…

In this episode, we unpack Amazon’s efforts to “disrupt U.S. healthcare” (apologies for the new age business lingo!). And after their spectacular failure to disrupt anything, we talk about Amazon’s pivot from “disrupting” the healthcare industry to joining it. About a month ago, Amazon purchased One Medical, an in-person and virtual subscription-based healthcare service (the…

Any regular listeners of the podcast won’t be surprised to hear that Gen Xers and Millennials are going into debt for healthcare… but what if we told you that this time it’s for their pets! More Americans are spending more money on healthcare for their beloved pets, which means insurance companies are getting in on…

Today we’re checking in on the ongoing Pennsylvania Senate race, where Medicare for All–along with crudites, poop tweets, hydroxychloroquine, and Turkish nationalism–has become a hot-button issue. This race is beyond interesting, shading into the bizarre! A lot is at stake, since control over the Senate is going to be hotly contested this midterm election, and…

Ben discusses the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which was signed into law by President Biden this past week! In last-minute negotiations between Senators Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin, the Senate finally – after comical failures over and over this past year – passed a VERY scaled-down version of the Build Back Better bill. The “IRA” bill…

Noted public health expert Lizzo teaches us that “thick thighs save lives,” but for many of us, being fat is killing us – and not for the reasons you might expect. Today we’re talking about our healthcare system’s impact on fat folks AND how misconceptions about fat folks impact our healthcare policy! Recent studies have…

In spring of 2007, Michael Moore released a blockbuster documentary showing the extraordinary damage the U.S. healthcare system inflicts upon ordinary Americans. Story by story, SiCKO pulled back the veil of how ordinary illness and injury, when paired with deadly healthcare profiteering, leads to suffering, financial ruin, and even death. 15 years later, together with…

Show Notes Today we venture into the bizarro world of Medicare (the program serving those 65 and older as well as some people with disabilities) to explore the largest Medicare rate hike in history. Our guest Alex Lawson, the Executive Director of Social Security Works, will help explain what’s happening. Social Security Works is the…

Today we look at the somehow-legal world of healthcare sharing ministries, a form of health coverage where like-minded religious folks share health care costs. After a series of lawsuits and scandals, these companies are in the news again recently. We’ll look at what HCSMs are, how they have flourished as insurance costs rise, and the…

There’s some adult language in this episode, so might not be appropriate for our youngest M4A advocates. The recent leak of what is likely to be the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has us enraged about the future of abortion and healthcare in America. Spoiler: We aren’t loving the fact that five…

Did you recently turn 26? Get kicked off your parents’ insurance? Have you been scrolling through your state’s healthcare exchange website, wondering if it would just be cheaper to crawl into a hole and die? Have we got the episode for you! We’re sitting down today with Lisa Giordano, Executive Director of the Association of…

Today we’re taking about ambulances and the ambulance industry! We know this topic is important because Michael Bay recently released an action movie called… “Ambulance.” This is the director who brings you about 90% of big-budget Hollywood films where car chases happen and lots of shit blows up. And sometimes robots from outer-space. Like a…

26.5 million Americans are insured by UnitedHealth Group, making it the largest insurance company in the U.S. with a whopping 14.4% market share and $287 billion in revenue last year – that’s more than the total income of most countries in Europe! In this episode, we take on this insurance behemoth and how it has…

Today Ben interviews Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, physician, epidemiologist, professor, former executive director of the Detroit Health Department, and candidate for Governor of Michigan. Dr. El-Sayed is also the author of several books and publications, most recently Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide. Show Notes Dr. El-Sayed discusses how his desire to improve disparities in health…

Mailbag Episode! Spilling the Tea with Ben and Gillian This week Ben and Gillian take questions from YOU, our listeners, and Medicare for All activists around the country. We got some really great questions submitted over the past week, and some very saucy questions as well – well done listeners! Show Notes Question from Susan…