Newsmakers meet New Yorkers as host Brian Lehrer and his guests take on the issues dominating conversation in New York and around the world. This daily program from WNYC Studios cuts through the usual talk radio punditry and brings a smart, humane approach to the day's events and what matters most in local and national politics, our own communities and our lives. WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts including Radiolab, On the Media, Death, Sex & Money, Nancy, and many others.
https://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl
30 Issues | Week 3 Recap: What America Gets Wrong (and Right) About Healthcare
We're Launching a Newsletter! Sign up for our election series newsletter! Once a week, you'll get a recap of our #30Issues segments straight to your inbox, with exclusive content and Brian's insights into that week's topic. Plus, there'll be ways for you to get more involved in planning the weeks ahead or to have your opinions heard. Think of it like an elections sandbox. Hop in, sign up and let's have fun! It's true: America is the only major modern country in the world that doesn't guarantee healthcare for all of its citizens. So how did we get here? The first 15 minutes of the segment below will take you on a historic recap of how America's health insurance system was made and remade. You'll hear Lyndon B. Johnson signing medicare into law in 1965, Bill Clinton asking for Congress' support in fixing a broken healthcare system in 1993, and Obama signing the ACA in 2010. Did you know that Iran is the only country with a legal system of buying and selling organs, which effectively creates a zero-wait-time kidney donor list? Or that Thailand is the gender-affirmation surgery capital of the world? Every day this week, we explored a different healthcare scenario in a different country and asked: how does it compare to America? So what would it be like if you...
90s Nostalgia of the Week
Do you remember the infamous "Harry and Louise" TV ads? They were launched by the insurance lobbies in response to Bill Clinton's calls for healthcare reform.
While Bill Clinton was pushing for healthcare reform in 1993, insurance lobbies were running these TV ads. #30Issueshttps://t.co/V8EHMaaVrI
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) April 28, 2016So Why Hasn't America Figured Out Universal Health Care? (And Should It?)Veteran journalist T.R. Reid thinks that American can get to universal coverage and should be able to cover everybody at a reasonable cost, but he doesn't believe Washington D.C. will do it. He thinks it's going to have to be a state-by-state effort.
If you think about it, child labor laws, women's suffrage, legalized marijuana, and many other things began on a state-by-state basis, said Reid. His guess is that universal coverage will start with his home state of Colorado.