Incorruptible Mass
Incorruptible Mass
HealthCare Now
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In the first episode of our new season, we kick off a series on healthcare by discussing the Luigi Mangione incident and the public’s response. We delve into the critical work of Healthcare Now, reflect on the Trump administration’s influence on healthcare goals, and explore how potential changes to Medicare could reshape the conversation around Medicare for All.
This is the audio version of the Incorruptible Mass podcast, season 6 episode 1. You can watch the video version on our YouTube channel.
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Hello and welcome to Incorruptible Mass. Our mission here is to help us all transform state politics. We know that we could have a commonwealth that truly represented the needs of all the residents, the 7 million people in our beautiful state.
So today we are starting a new season. This is season six. We are starting a little bit of a new format.
We're going to be taking some deep dives into different topics and our first topic is healthcare. And we are joined by an incredible guest who's working nationally on Medicare for All. We are going to introduce her in a second.
Today we, we're by the way, we're going to have a number of episodes on healthcare. So this is only the first. But today we will be talking a little bit about what happened with Luigi Mangione and the reaction in the public around that incident.
We'll be talking of course about the work that Healthcare Now is doing, um, talking about the Trump administration and how we should, you know, prepare to think a little bit differently about our, our goals and what we accomplish. And then we'll also be talking about Medicare itself and what happens if that is, you know, is not as good. What, what does that change in terms of the way that we talk about Medicare for All and other things.
We'll be talking a little bit about medical debt and other things like that. So we're really looking forward to the conversation. But before we do, let me introduce my industrious co hosts.
I will start with the inimitable Jordan Berg Powers. Do you want to introduce yourself?
Jordan Berg Powers? He him. It's nice to see everyone today, especially Gillian, to talk about healthcare now and healthcare for all.
And we're excited to dive in deep to make those linkages between both the national stuff that's going on around healthcare and also spend a little bit more time on how we can think about it and move it forward as a whole. So I'm excited about this. It's nice to see you all.
Oh, I'm in Worcester, Massachusetts and I have many years working in policy and education and elections
And the fantastico Jonathan Cohn.
Yeah, Jonathan Cohn. He and his joining from the South End in Boston and I've been active on a number of progressive issue and electoral campaigns here in Massachusetts for shockingly to me over a decade now.
Wonderful. Anna Callahan, she her coming at you from Medford. I am also a city councilor in Medford.
Done a lot of sort of local politics but across the country. But I have always been deeply, deeply interested in essentially Medicare for all. My mom is British and always, as soon as I was born, she was like, this way that you do it in this country is dumb.
So. And with that, I am so excited to have our guest introduce herself. Gillian Mason from Healthcare now, if you can tell us just a bit about yourself and also a little bit about Healthcare Now the organization.
Absolutely. So happy to be here with y'all. It's so nice to see old friends from Massachusetts.
I am Gillian Mason, as you said. I'm the executive director of Healthcare now, which is a national organization that's been fighting for 20 years now for a Medicare for all, universal health care, single payer, whatever you want to call it, a system where a healthcare system where everybody is in and nobody is out. So I came to this work actually, the way that I know all of you all is that I was in Boston for 20 years organizing in the labor movement.
And the way that I came to that work really was actually because I got sick in the middle of my grad school career and went broke and ended up just, you know, feeling powerless and, you know, just, yeah, getting, getting to the, the end of my rope. And then. And that's when I started telling my healthcare story and started getting involved with organizations that were fighting for healthcare.
And by the time I finished grad school, I was ready to be done with the academy and to, to do some work in the streets. And so. So, yeah, so that's how I came to this work was through health care and specifically through being a kind of victim of our health care system and trying to flip that around.
But yeah, health care. Now we'll talk a little bit more about what we do. But in general, our mission is really to defend health care for everyone who lives in this country, regardless of their zip code, their income, race, gender identity, really just everyone.
So that's what we're working on.
Fantastic. Well, I really want to open today up with just a little short discussion of the events that happened a couple months ago with the assassination of a healthcare health insurance CEO.
And the whole Luigi Mangione story, which I'll tell you what that meant to me was I, even though I've been a Medicare for all person, like as, I don't know, as as much as anybody, I guess, certainly since 2016, I was shocked by the public reaction. And I guess what it meant to me was that there was just a deeper level of anger and rage that I think had been going on for longer than even I realized. And for me, that means change.
Right? Hey, let's change that. Because if People are that angry and, you know, devastated. And, you know, if there's that much obvious public sentiment, then we, that should be, We should be able to get some change. So I'm just going to open it up there and see if anybody has any comments to talk a little bit for a moment about what that moment in time, about the American healthcare and health insurance industry.
You know, if you don't mind me starting off, I just, I think it was not particularly surprising to me. And the reason for that is that I, you know, every day I open up my inbox at Healthcare now and I have people telling me their stories about the healthcare system, a lot of them about UnitedHealth, because they are definitely one of the worst. Right. Can't shy away from that.
But I think that, like, the thing that this really reveals to me is just how deep the trauma of our healthcare system goes for people. It cuts so deep, and there are layers of shame that prevent people from talking about it. Right.
There's this idea in this country that if you can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you're doing something wrong. If you don't have good health insurance, your job isn't important. I've actually had people say that to me.
And, and, you know, there's, there's that it's just embarrassing for people to talk about, you know, their kind of failure to get health care in the system when in fact, it's the system that's failing them. Right. And so, so, yeah, so that was not shocking to me.
I think it's, you know, really, really important, though. One thing that we know about trauma when we're talking about individuals, but that we forget about our culture is hurt people hurt people.
Right. There's that, you know, and it's true. Right.
And so in some ways, the shooting is part of a kind of cycle of violence that's related to the violence that the industry is purported on so many people across this country. So that's, that's how I'm seeing it. It's a, it's a sad moment, but also, as you said, really important moment.
Right. Because people are coming out of the closet and starting to talk about how this is actually impacting. Yeah, yeah.
I would say just to say something. Go ahead. Gillian said, especially with like, the breadth, like, kind of how, like ubiquitous a lot of the comments were, is that it kind of just shows you about how everybody experiences the health, the health system.
It's one of those things that is kind of a, a kind of let's say, like, universally shared experience that people have. Because at the end of the day, if people need to be healthy and like, or in some way, right? Health is something that's like an innately human thing that is shared across people. That if the, the.
And with the way that the system is structured in the US Everybody has likely had at least one negative experience. And I'd say, like, no matter how good of quality of insurance that you have, you could have likely had at least one negative, negative experience with the health insurance system in the US and the way that that creates additional stress for people.
No both, I'll say psychological stress and financial stress, which I think really leads to the thing I said on Gillian's podcast, which I just want to say to everyone, that if you feel like five episodes or four episodes is not enough healthcare content, you can get a lot of really amazing content at Healthcare now where they, where they dive into these in a lot of different complexities and a lot of different ways, a lot of different avenues.
So do go to their website to, to learn more and to listen if you're into that, as well as, of course, listening to our podcast and making sure you share it. But I'll just say I was on there and I said like. And one of the things I always tell people is as somebody you're listening, you probably at least are for Medicare for All or at least for a public option.
You're probably for some type of solution that isn't the current situation. And the thing we do when we talk about it is we always go right into the solution. We're like, Medicare for all or a public option, or we, you know, we got to like, regulate health care.
But like, the, you know, one of the things I've learned from conservatives is they never bother talking about solutions. Like, they don't even pretend to have solutions. They just get people outraged.
And we have this issue which touches everyone, as Jonathan just said, everyone has a bad version of it. The reaction to, to Luigi proves that everyone's mad. If you have all that anger and all of those bad stories, that's what we should be harnessing.
We do not need to get into the weeds with regular people about how much Medicare is actually, you know, Canadian system or the UK system or Medicare for All, like, investment rate. Right, like that, right? Like, don't waste your time. And I'll tell you, people always want to drag me down into that whenever I say, like.
So whenever I tell people to talk about Medicare for All, I say, don't mention those Words. The first thing you have to say is, this system's really effed up and we can do something different. This is dumb.
And so many times conservatives will be like, well, what's your solution? And I'll say, not this. We can do better than this. No one does this.
No one picks this because it's stupid and we shouldn’t do it. And there's some really great ideas and we should move towards them and we should not use this. We should not be complacent and not let them lie to us that this is the best we can do because no one else is doing this.
Really? I immediately go back to, actually, this sucks. Let's get rid of this. Because that's actually the thing we need to focus on is the anger and the frustration and the universality of that experience.
Yeah, yeah. Like if they can get away with repeal and replace being their slogan. Right.
Which is like a contentless slogan. Right. Like, can't we do that? Right.
Like repeal the for profit insurance. Replace it with what? I don't know. I have a concept of a plan. [Laughter]
Well put. Yes. So while I 100% agree with you and I think that is great, and I'll be doing that from now on, we are digging into the details today and I do want to ask you, Gillian, for what Health Care now, like, how do you approach things nationally? Like, what is your strategy? What. What have you learned from doing this for 20 years? What are you doing today? Just talk to us a little bit about healthcare now and what you're working on.
Absolutely.
So even if you're mentioning Medicare for All, it's okay. You know, honestly, we call it Medicare for All because that's what polls best. Right.
But probably when that doesn't poll best, we'll call it something else. Right? Because it doesn't really matter what it's called. It's something better than what we fucking have.
Right. Pardon my language. I'm sorry to be cursed on this podcast.
Don't worry. Normally,
– no bleep me out. Okay? –
We'll find a creative Medicare for All themed way to bleep that out.
If you can be just like the, you know, the heart monitor at a hospital or whatever, like –
We'll have a little thing of Bernie saying huge. Yeah, yeah.
So, okay, so health Care Now, Right? So at Health Care now, you know, we started out as this organization just with this mission of, you know, passing some kind of single payer organization.
But it's really grown and I think we've grown to see ourselves as part of a larger health justice movement. Right. What they're coming for when they come for health care is they're coming for our bodies.
And there are so many people in this country whose bodies are under attack right now. So this is really an attack on bodily autonomy. And we're trying to fight back in all sorts of different ways.
So we're supporting all sorts of, you know, we're obviously still fighting for Medicare for All and that bill will be reintroduced this year and we'll get some co sponsors and we continue to increase the number of co sponsors. Right. So we know that somehow the word is getting out, right, through a lot of really good organizing on the ground.
But yeah, you know, so we really support people all over the country who are doing grassroots organizing around a couple of different things. Not just federal Medicare for All, but state level Medicare for All. And then even some folks who are working on things like municipal resolutions where they go to their city council and you know, say Councilor Callahan, you know, we really need Medicare for All in Medford.
And so, you know, let's pass a resolution through the city council that says so. And that helps us to kind of again build power, you know, slowly but powerful. And so we support folks who are working on those we support.
Also a lot of folks who are working on just defending the public health systems that we do have, like stopping privatization and Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, which is a system that we don't talk about nearly enough. And the way that we do that is really through a lot of education, both of the public and also training of activists in grassroots organizing. So we have a training program where folks can come in, they can do one training where it come for a whole cycle of trainings that'll teach you the kind of basics of health care policy and talking about healthcare policy and.
And then also just like the basics of grassroots organizing. So even if you don't have a healthcare group in your area or in your state, you can always get together with people and do something, right? So there's that. We also have our podcast where we try to educate the public.
It's the Medicare for All podcast, not Medicare for All Explained. They’re are rivals. Just kidding.
But, but it's, it's a different thing. So yeah, the Medicare for All podcast, available on all of your podcasting platforms. It is the, I think the funniest, non comedy healthcare podcast just going today, you know, so.
And of course we've had Jonathan and Jordan on as guests in the past. And then finally we're working on something that I'm like, really, really proud of. This is a project that was sort of conceived, received by Ben Day.
Hey, Ben. I know he listens to the podcast located in Massachusetts.
And, and this is the voices of U–This is the Voices of US Healthcare database. Right. So when we talk about like this like kind of outpouring of anger, right? If you're sitting at home right now and you are thinking about your healthcare story and you're thinking about where to put it, right.
A lot of people are just like kind of unloading on social media, which is really great. That helps to raise the vis of the thing just in terms of your own personal networks and stuff. That being said, right, like TikTok could be banned like tomorrow or the next day or whatever.
So we need a place where these stories can live. And so we have this publicly accessible database of healthcare stories from all over the country. We have over 100 stories right now from, I think all 50 states.
And it is, it's, it's, it's an amazing testament to the depth of the problem, but it also is a great way of engaging people in the fight. Right. So when people submit their stories to us, we're able to like, introduce them to some of the grassroots organizing that's going on, help them to kind of channel that feeling of powerlessness into a feeling of, you know, building power.
Right. Which is really what we'll post that in the show notes. So if anyone's listening to this and you want to send in your story, please do.
That link's going to be right below this. Absolutely. And you'll see in the database you can, if you're interested in sort of exploring, you can search by the different health conditions people are dealing with, the state that they're in.
And if you're a journalist, for example, you can sort by people who are willing to speak with reporters or people who are willing to speak at a public event. Right. And so it's just, again, it just demonstrates the depth and the breadth of the program, the problem that we're facing right now.
But yeah, another thing that you can do is if you see your friends or other people in your network posting their healthcare stories on social media, just drop a link in the comments to the health care database and encourage them to submit their story there as well. So, yeah, that is what we are working on. And then in addition to that, we're also going to be working on some, some fight back because we know that there's a lot coming down from the Trump administration.
I know we're going to Talk about that. What a great segue. So I, I would love for us to talk about that. You know, there are so many things. It is not like it was eight years ago where everyone is like, we're gonna fight everything now.
You know, it's very different. And also, I think the Trump administration is just, you know, better set up to accomplish the things that they are hoping to accomplish. So I think we have to be very concerned and prepared to, you know, be able to push back on the things that happen.
And so, you know, you, as someone who's thought really deeply about what might be coming down the pipe, if you can just talk a little bit about that and let us know, you know, what health care now is thinking about in terms of the Trump administration.
Well, I feel like every time I talk about this, I feel like I should have, like, a. Like a flashlight, like, Like around a campfire, like, telling ghost stories or whatever. Scary. And then the call was coming from inside the Department of Health and Human Services.
So. Yeah. So I think that what we're looking at really is two things.
One is sort of the RFK of it, all, right? He's being nominated, obviously, for the Secretary of Health and Human Services for the Secretary of the Department of Health. He would be in charge of all sorts of crazy public health shit that he doesn't really believe in, which is controversy, right? So we all know. I mean, this man's a maniac.
I'm sorry. Like, he is. We did a deep dive for our podcast into his past, and it was wild.
I mean, you know, we know about the things with vaccines, but, like, this man literally believes that, like, there are certain kinds of weed killers that are making kids trans. I mean, he believes in chemtrails. He believes in, you know, just like he believes that HIV is not the cause of aids, and.
And we've seen the consequences of his beliefs, right, when they're implemented in public policy in places like American Samoa, right, Where people just died, right, because they listened. So there's that. That's, like sort of the health end, right? That's less on the health care and the health care and is even more terrifying to me.
And that's the Dr. Oz of it, all, right? And so we know that when Dr. Oz was running for Senate, right, that the plan that he proposed and the plan that he sort of stuck by since then is basically like a Medicare Advantage for all.
People might not know, but Medicare Advantage is basically the privatization of the Medicare thing. So if you see, like, on ads on tv, right, telling you like zero copay better than traditional Medicare or whatever. That's a private insurance company that's trying to sell you a private plan.
They're taking Medicare dollars out of our national coffers. Right. And they're.
And they're spending it on private insurers. And that's charter schools. Right.
Pretty. Yeah, I always make that comparison because it's exactly the same thing. Yeah.
So anyway, so Dr. Oz's plan really is about privatization and about cutting Medicaid reimbursement rates as well. So his first plan will probably be to gut Medicaid, and then we'll move on to Medicare.
So we can look forward to a lot of privatization, a lot of cuts, tax starving the system so that it is no longer functional. So that's what's coming up. But it'll have the name Medicare.
So people will have this belief that it's government not working the same way that they've. You know, this is. I mean, this is their, This is their M.O. conservatives will destroy public institutions, and then they'll say, I don't know who broke this, but give us all the money. And then the media will say, we also don't know who broke this, and we can't have any historical knowledge about who might have broke this.
But what we can tell you is that these two people are saying opposite things. And you get to decide. One of them is saying something truthful, one of them is saying something bonkers.
We won't give any historical accurate information about this or any facts whatsoever, but you get to decide based on what your limited knowledge of the health care, like, it's the same MO over and over again. And it's just like, you know, and so we know that that's what they're going to run on Medicare.
Dude, I feel like it's kind of even worse than that when they're like, it's not that they're like, oh, the system is broken. We don't know who broke it. They're like, the system has always been broke. Right.
Like, it has always been this way. Right? Yeah, yeah, it was. Private insurance was sent down from God, and Medicare was implemented by Jesus and the Father, the Son and the Holy Aetna.
Yeah, I do think that that is a little closer. And even in education, like, they. They defund, They, like, make it impossible to do a good job at something. And then they're like, see? Look how terrible it always has been. Yeah, yeah.
See, See the. See standardized testing. See no Child Left Behind.
See everything Obama did for eight years to Destroy public education.
And I think what this speaks to, I think as well especially which is some of the toxic natures of privatization with like Medicare, all the Medicare Advantage plans, or even like the need for Medicare supplementals when rather than like say expanding what Medicare covers for things.
It reminds me of the often toxic nature in which choice gets employed in politics where there are many very real important spaces in the ground where choice is a value.
And I tend to say, like, if there is something about self expression, choice, choice has value. Nobody is engaging in the matter of self expression by choosing a health insurance plan, like with something like health insurance, all that the difference is how much do you pay and how much does it cover. And those are purely quantitative differences between them.
And if the only differences at work are like, basically how much is it and how much do you pay? There is no reason for choice to be a concept because choice is not a real, it is not a real, it is not a real choice that you are making. It is a choice based on your financial, financial abilities and risk assessment.
I have to say this whole like, choice, like we have never had employer paid health insurance, so we have to pay for it ourselves. And I hate the process of choosing so much because I'm choosing between them screwing us over in one way and them screwing us over in another way. And there is no them-not-screwing-us-over choice. And what I hate the most is they force me to choose.
They force me to choose the particular way in which they're gonna totally screw us. And it just makes me so angry. So this idea that I love the choice, like, oh my God, I would do anything to never have to choose between those things.
It's like the thing that I think people, people, ordinary people get, right? But that politicians forget when they say things about choices. Like, we are actually not the consumers in this analogy. We are, we're the commodity, right? Like it's our, our bodies are the commodity and they're making money off of our bodies, right? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's not like you're going to be in the, you're not going to be sitting in the ambulance having a heart attack and being like, but what's the co pay on the, you know, on the nearest hospital, could we go to maybe the furthest hospital away so that, you know, I can save some money or whatever. It just doesn't happen that way. It's not.
Let me bring this back for a minute to like the Trump administration before we move on to the next point and just ask you, what else should we be thinking about in terms of the Trump administration. Are there any other kind of big bullet points that you think people should be aware of? Yeah, I mean I think that they're the issues that people are largely already aware of. But that relates it relating to health care.
They no doubt all of the anti immigrant sentiment, whatever kind of legislative or policy form it takes is going to mean that a lot of immigrants are going to be cut off from health care in this country. And that that's bullshit. We all know that immigrants pay more in than they get back into our federal systems.
And it's just, yeah, it's just, it's just not right that we leave people out in the cold. And then the other things would be like gender affirming care, like I'm coming to you from and, and, and reproductive healthcare. And I mean in that regard, like hi, I'm coming from you to you from Texas and I'm your future, you know, a state where you can't get, you know, reproductive health care at all.
We don't have abortions here and we don't. And you can actually, if you were to, if you lived in Texas and you gave me $50 to get a bus out of state. Right.
You could actually be charged with, with a crime. And so I think that those are things, you know, at health care now we believe strongly that everyone has the right to the health care, that not just the healthcare that can save your life, but the healthcare that can save your dignity as well. And so gender affirming care, reproductive healthcare, these are the things that we are entitled to as well.
So when we think about what we're going to be fighting back against, it's going to be a broad range of things. And that's why we're setting up in the process right now setting up a rapid response network that folks who are broadly interested in health and healthcare on the national level can sign up for and get action alerts for ways that they can take action. It's called the Health Emergency Action Team – Heat.
When they try to leave us out in the cold, turn up the heat. And that'll be, we'll be unrolling that on February 1st, hopefully. So that is amazing.
So I just want to talk, I just want to say again just really quickly about, you know, trans affirming care. I think, you know, one of the things we're seeing already is that like, like it's already the case that most practitioners could actually be giving hormones to people, to people who would like them. It's actually a regular thing that happens.
One of my good friend's sons had trouble growing and he was getting hormones to help him grow. That is a normal course of action. We don't think about that.
That was happening when I was a kid.
Right, right. For many, many, for many, many decades.
For boys. For boys.
Right. But for. And then for women also, You know, hormone replacement has been a part of the post menopause things. We are already doing these things. And the way in which the sort of insidiousness that the media has gone along with this attack on people who are, who are small in number of actual human beings is, is.
Is to make it sound like there's many more. Right. We know from polling people think there's many more trans people than there actually are, and that this is somehow something that isn't done all the time, which it is and has been done for a long time.
And the reason that's important to you, you might not care. You're like, what do I care? Is that that's what happened with women's care. That's what.
Right. Like I always tell people, you know, abortion used to be common in every part of history. You know, Jesus was walking around and people were having abortions and he didn't have anything to say about it, just for shit to, you know, like, he could have said no, but that was a common thing that happened back then, and he did it.
Abortions have been around as long as people have been getting together with each other. People have been. And so the, the The sort of thinking that it's abnormal to do something to treat women's health care, that's a new creation, that is a modern creation to roll back basic ideas of humanity. And they have done that to women, they have done that to trans people. They will do that to you.
Like you already, you already agree to a subpar set. You already agree to do really dumb. How we all accept that when we get sick, we ask, how sick are we? That's something that we don't have to accept, but we've all accepted it as a normal course of our life to say, how sick am I before I go get care.
Obama literally said to people, the thing, we have to make it more cost. We have to drive up costs so people don't access it as much. Right.
Because two of it's too expensive. Like that is something that we've baked in. We have already.
We've already baked in a lack of your humanity. So do not think that these things where they're doing, where they're Taking away modern medicine, that is the things that we've been doing for decades. And they take it away from you and, or take it away from someone who you don't know and say because it's abnormal and you're thinking they're going to do it to you.
And so these things all intersect with each other. Right. And so that's why it's really important that you get involved.
That's why it's really important that you go to healthcare now. It's why it's really important that you get these, the sort of national understanding of these things. And it's why it's important that we do everything possible in Massachusetts to shore these things up.
Absolutely. So I know we're running just a couple minutes over. We only have a couple minutes left.
And I'm just going to ask you about. Oh, before I do, boy, I'm. This is going to be a late, late, late mid roll, sort of mid roll.
It's sort of mid, like late mid. That if you're listening to this podcast, you understand that like these kinds of deep dives into these subjects are something that, that you are not going to get anywhere else. Our media doesn't really support, as we talked about just earlier today, does not support sort of the, the needs of the vast majority of the residents of Massachusetts or of America.
And we are trying to fill some of those gaps. So if you appreciate it, spread it to your friends and also please, there's a link below, you can donate. We really appreciate your donations.
They go to helping us get this out to more people. We have some wonderful young folks that we pay – none of us get paid – we pay to do graphics, to do a little bit of video editing, to do our social media posting in those things. So please do donate to the show. Any comments on that? Jonathan, you look like you're ready.
I was like, I wanted to make the comment of pay a monthly premium to the show. We do not deny access to any of the episodes. [Laughter] Well put.
And on that note, my final question for you is really about. You mentioned right before we started to hit record that, you know, there are some sort of stopgap measures that people are doing around medical debt and other things. And if you could tell us a little bit bit about those, that would be great.
Yeah, they'll probably be. I mean, medical debt is a great point of intervention. Right.
Because, you know, so many people have just been ruined by medical debt in this country and so obviously relieving medical debt actually does nothing to fix the system. So I'M not going to. You know, whatever.
That being said, what it does do is to actually relieve the pressure on people's lives. And I think that when we think about stopgap measures, it's like, you know, I had this conversation with Bernie Sanders. Do I have time to tell this story? I'm just gonna tell.
All right, so I had this. We were. We're on a group call with Bernie Sanders, and I asked him about how he had sort of, you know, walked back.
Walked back a little bit from Medicare for All and was talking about some of the other things like relieving medical debt or trying to, you know, increase the number of people who are covered by Medicare by, you know, lowering the age limit. Right. And so I said, you know, well, what does that mean for people who are fighting for Medicare for All? And he said, you have to keep the vision of Medicare for All alive.
Right. But at the same time, we have to do everything that we can to help people who are hurting right now. And so I would really encourage people just to, you know, be keeping an eye on their neighbors and keeping an eye on their communities during this time.
So, you know, there'll be some kind of, like I said, some kind of federal legislation to try to relieve medical debt that folks can support. There'll be some, like, policy solutions. But I really encourage people to get involved in their communities.
You are going to have, no matter where you live in America, there will be a group of immigrants in your community who are going to be cut off from their health care. There will be people who are cut off from Medicaid or whose Medicaid is going to be cut. So, you know, we.
There will be people who need abortions, who can't get access to them. And there are underground networks everywhere, people who are helping to ground, underground and above ground, depending on where you live, who are helping people to access abortion. So I guess I just wanted to say don't sleep on that because we have an obligation to do whatever we can to improve the terrible material conditions of our lives right now.
So, yeah, keep an eye on your neighbors, keep an eye on your community during the next four years because there are going to be a lot of folks who need you. Wonderful. Any final thoughts from my compatriots here before we go? You know, I think, like, just, again, lead with the stories, lead with the anchor.
Harness it. Encourage people to just not like what they currently like and not just feel and, and, you know, let's, let's figure out how to, how to finally get this done. I'll just say thank you, Gillian, for all the great work.
Yeah, I really appreciate that. And can I just say that I genuinely love each and every one of you and it is so good to spend some time virtually back in Massachusetts where you have women's reproductive care. So it's nice.
Yeah, wonderful. Well, thank you so, so much. We look forward folks that are listening, Please look at Submit your stories to HEALTHCARE now with a link below and you can look forward to a few more episodes where we are going to be covering more about healthcare in America.
And until then, have a great week and thanks to everybody for listening.