Subscribe on Patreon and hear this week's full patron-exclusive episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/124065295 Hi listeners — Beatrice and Artie are currently on parental leave. (We were planning to be able to telegraph the announcement more this week, but "baby death panel" had other plans, and came early!). While we're away, we'll still have episodes in the feed, like today's episode; a mix of some old favorites we haven't revisited in a while and some unlocks. We’ll be back as soon as it’s safe and reasonable for us to do so, because with everything going on right now we want to make sure we’re here for everyone. We also want to thank each and every one of you, because without support from our patrons it wouldn’t be possible for us to take this kind of time. So if you can, now is a great time to support the show at patreon.com/deathpanelpod — either by becoming a patron or increasing your membership. Original episode description: In today's episode, we survey the extremely messy history that led to the passage of original Medicare, the role private insurers and other industry groups played in its creation, and some of its unintended consequences we live with to this day. Runtime 1:14:40 🧬