Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy #1595 Pushing for Medicare For All in the Laboratories of Democracy (Throwback)
Original Air Date: 11/29/2023
The movement for universal health care is still underway, though it rarely gets recognized in mainstream discourse. The murder of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson is an occasion worth using to look at the progress being made to improve our system of promoting the health of all people in the United States as well as efforts to rein in the power of big Pharma that's used to gouge the American people with exorbitant prices. So, that's what we're doing.
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SHOW NOTES
Healthcare activist Ady Barkan has died at the age of 39 of the neurodegenerative disease ALS. His story is told in the documentary Not Going Quietly. In 2021, Democracy Now! spoke with Ady Barkan just ahead of the film’s premiere.
Ch. 2: Why your health insurance is tied to work - The Weeds - Air Date 10-18-23
The wartime policy that changed health insurance forever
Ch. 3: Rethinking the path to winning single payer - Code WACK! - Air Date 4-10-23
Winning Medicare for All in the U.S. may be at a standstill at the federal level, but it's a different story In the states. In 2021 alone, 18 single-payer bills were introduced in states such as Massachusetts, New York, Colorado, and Oregon.
If Medicare Advantage, the profit-driven entity that is decidedly NOT part of REAL Medicare, could be summed up in three words, they might be: deny, deny, deny.
Peter Maybarduk joins us to discuss how the new negotiation process aims to break up drug monopolies and disband the pharmaceutical industry’s profit incentive.
Ch. 8: The Challenge of Caring for Our Elders - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 11-15-23