The Nicole Sandler Show

The "Government-sanctioned extortion" line is mine... it's what I call the for-profit health insurance industry. Think about it. You have to pay them in order to get the prices they've negotiated for medical care of every stripe. If you don't have insurance, you're charged the "list price," but if you pay your monthly extortion to cabal, then the cost for services is what those two entities negotiated. The bottom line is you'll pay, one way or the other. I used to dream of crawling across the line of 65... you know, when I'll be eligible for Medicare. I understood that the current process of insurance companies deciding what treatment you'll get instead of relying on the actual doctor to make those calls wasn't an issue when you were able to get the actual government-supplied Medicare. And it was, until the advent of so-called Medicare *Advantage*. Today, Wendell Potter [http://twitter.com/wendellpotter]returns to the show. Potter, still the only health insurance industry employee to turn whistleblower to expose these extortionists for the crooks they are, testified before NYC's Committee on Civil Service and Labor against Mayor Eric Adams' decision to move NY's public worker retirees into an Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan. He opened his testimony by repeating "Medicare Advantage is neither Medicare nor is it an advantage for millions of Americans." Be sure to subscribe to Wendell's newsletter at wendellpotter.substack.com [https://wendellpotter.substack.com/] And now, after a devastating report from Pro Publica, Potter is turning his sites on the unreasonable and dangerous "prior authorization" requirement that is actually killing patients... And at the end, I'll have a few words to share about the Grammys, which I didn't watch, but now wish I had....

A bit of what's news, for now

This long week finally comes to a close today with another full show. We have unfinished business yesterday, regarding both heinous House votes on the "horrors of socialism" and to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs committee. I'll share Mark Takano's piece [https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/the-republican-socialism-resolution-a-guest-post-by-rep-mark-takano] for DownwithTyranny.com [http://downwithtyranny.com/] that Howie Klein told us about yesterday, and we'll try to get to the second half of Rep. Omar's floor speech that we didn't have time for yesterday. Then, we'll chat with John Nichols [http://twitter.com/nicholsuprising] of The Nation [http://thenation.org/] about both stories... Then it's time to start the weekend. When I did music radio in Los Angeles, a band called The Young Dubliners [https://zencastr.com/publish/The-Nicole-Sandler-Show/_wp_link_placeholder] became friends of mine, and played a number of times in our studios and at station events. I honestly didn't even know they were still playing, until I saw a Young Dubs show advertised at the Broward Center. So, I'll be seeing them tonight (tickets still available.... I highly recommend them!). In preparation, we'll jump in the wayback machine and go back to October 19, 1995 for an in-studio visit from The Young Dubliners.

A bit of what's news for now

I was looking forward to a quiet Thursday in which I could talk with Howie Klein [http://downwithtyranny.com/] about the travesty of ticket prices for live concerts on the day after a new Bruce Springsteen tour's start. I'll likely miss my first Bruce tour since 1980's The River due to Ticketmaster's "dynamic" and exorbitant prices. But we have politics to talk about... The racist, bigoted Republican party that has a majority in the House of Representatives today ignored the racists, bigots and criminals in their caucus, but booted Rep. Ilhan Omar from her place on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, calling her anti-Semitic. (Cue the Opposite World sounder here) But that's not all... Some members of the House Democratic caucus (109 of them to be specific), went along with the Republicans' gaslighting, and voted with them in favor of a resolution from magats Maria Elvira Salazar and Steve Scalise condemning the "HORRORS of socialism". Seriously? So, music will have to wait until next week.... And, sometime in the first half-hour, we'll likely hear from Randi Weingarten [http://twitter.com/rweingarten], president of the American Federation of Teachers [http://aft.org/] to ask her how they're dealing with the fascist assault on education that 's taking hold here in Florida, with the other fascists states looking to DeSantis for guidance...

A bit of what's news, for now

Finding it difficult to keep all the investigations, prosecutions, special counsels and the rest of the stuff surrounding the former guy straight? Welcome to the club! Today, we connect the dots... or listen to Marcy Wheeler [http://twitter.com/emptywheel] of emptywheel.net [http://emptywheel.net/], as she connects the dots for us!

A bit of what's news, for now

It's Tuesday and Laffy is here. All bets are off, anything goes.

A bit of what's news, for now