Speaker 1This is a moral call right here. This is not about politics. This is about morality.
Speaker 2Health emergencies can't wait for us to have some theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass. Hello, friends. I am Jillian Mason.
Speaker 3And I am Benjamin Day.
Speaker 2And this is the Medicare for All podcast, the podcast for everyone who needs health care. Ben, so good to see you. How are you doing this week?
Speaker 3You hit a little soprano note there at the end. That was very impressive.
Speaker 2Thank you. Yes, I'm, you know, I've been working on, you know, my sofa voce. Yeah, it's been pretty great.
Speaker 3Are we going to be a musical act or are we going to?
Speaker 2I don't think I've ever sung on the podcast and now I really want to. So let's make an opportunity for that at some point.
Speaker 3All right, next time.
Speaker 2What have you been up to this week, Ben?
Speaker 3Anything fun? I've just been busy as hell with work. For reasons I will not bore you with, at this time of the year, I get hit with the same three overwhelming projects at the same time.
Speaker 2Because the environment is like especially bad this time of year.
Speaker 3Oh, yeah. It's mostly the Earth's fault. So, yeah, yeah, blame the planet.
Speaker 2All right. Very good. For those who don't know, Ben is working in the environmental movement for Friends of the Earth. So I wanted to give you some exciting news this week, Ben. I've got some health care news I want to go over with you. I have some news from Oregon that's pretty amazing. And then coincidentally, and it really is a coincidence, we actually have an interview with some folks from Oregon. And we're going to talk a little bit about why Medicare for All is popping off so much there. So look forward to that.
Speaker 3Yes. I love those podcast coincidences.
Speaker 2Hey, bad news first, though, buddy. Bad news first. You want to do the bad news first? No, I'll leave it to you. Yeah, go ahead. I just like last episode, you seemed really confused about the things that we can and can't eat because the, you know, the, sorry. What's his name? RFK Jr. Right. Asshole. Because RFK Jr. can't get his shit together. So here are some things that we're still watching out for, for contamination. Lettuce. Still. Jalapenos. Still. All right. Frozen blueberries. We weren't paying attention to that.
Speaker 3Cinnamon. I think I have eaten these, the first two regularly in the last weeks. And my wife is eating them. She's eaten the second two regularly in the last weeks. All right. All right. I think you need to pay attention to the news a little bit more.
Speaker 2The new one for this week, just so you don't have to go back and look. The new one for this week was so delicious, salted caramel clustered non-dairy frozen dessert, which was recalled because the cashews in it were mixed with rock.
Speaker 3Oh. Well, in fairness, Julian, in fairness, all food does come from the earth. So stop whining, you little babies. America is becoming so soft. Can't even handle a little rock with your ligament. Cashew. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. A little rock with your cashew. Yeah, absolutely. So just wanted to like kind of update you on that. I have another update on something terrible that's going on with American health care. Would you like that too then?
Speaker 3Not really, but okay.
Speaker 2No, good. I'm happy that you're happy to be here.
Speaker 3Life in America. Life in America, 2026. What can I tell you?
Speaker 2So this is our biweekly Medicaid is tanking update. So as folks know, whether from us or from somewhere else, probably someone who's getting screwed, Medicaid cuts are coming down very quickly. Thanks to the Republicans and their big ugly bill, which cut over a trillion dollars from Medicaid. And basically what we have now is that more states, including Virginia, Illinois and California, so some of the big ones, have actually jumped into the process of doing the literal notification, right? So just letting beneficiaries know the stupid new work requirement policies that are coming down. So in most of the 30, the 43 states that are affected, if you are a Medicaid recipient, you've gotten a letter about the fact that in 2027. You're going to be fucked. So important to watch out for those letters. This is really more of a public service announcement than anything. Yes, yes, actually, it would be interesting if there were a law that they had to write your.
Speaker 3People are like, what can states do to rein in the federal government? Well, this is what states could do. A little bit of truth telling.
Speaker 2The your. Your fucktack of 2027. So, yeah, so I guess this again, this tells us everything you need to know about the American health care system, but also it's really important information. So, yes. So, you know, the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown, they're pretty important think tank. And so they have been sort of tracking this really well on their Web site. I'll make sure it goes into the show notes. But. Really, it is. It's really disturbing. Right. So they've been tracking these. They've been tracking these and they basically have found that there are a couple of key areas where states have had some trouble communicating the essential details. Right. They said that after reviewing all of the Web sites that are up, you know, like and the letters that have gone out, et cetera, et cetera. That a lot of people, a lot of states still haven't managed to make clear who the work requirements actually apply to. Right. Also, there is a provision in the law that full time caregivers for household members are exempt. But that is actually missing from a lot of the guidance in the state packages. And then there is there's this other thing which is really important. Again, for folks to know, which is that most in most states, people can like sort of speed run the process of verifying their employment by verifying that they make at least five hundred and eighty dollars a month instead of trying to like document their hours, et cetera, et cetera. So it's like, you know, it's still too complicated, but it's a slight shortcut. And that is actually not mentioned in a lot of states documentation. And then finally, a lot of the states are failing to actually tell people how to get themselves verified. So, like in North Carolina, their notice says it just tells people save any papers that show you are exempt. Your local Department of Social Services, also called DSS, may need to see them. So basically, folks who are getting kicked off of Medicaid right now or who are at risk of getting kicked off of Medicaid are being really set up for failure by this system. It's almost like they're discouraged. And people to access Medicaid.
Speaker 3But I was going to say there are several theories you could go to three. Go for one, which I would definitely believe with some of these states is that they would be thrilled to see the Medicaid rolls trimmed because that would be cutting the state budget as well as forging people. Some of these states you would think they were maybe not that evil. But the other theory I had to jump to mind was that it's possible that the state agencies. The state agencies barely understand who is required to get work requirements themselves, and therefore are having a hard time communicating it. And if the state agencies don't fully understand or grasp it or can't communicate it, then there's no hope for the rest of us.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's where I'm at. And that is also where the Center for Children and Families was at. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They I mean, honestly, their their take was really just that probably the states do not understand the requirements themselves, that they're very confusing. That the rule that came out, you know, which is the kind of guidelines by which they're going to enforce this is very confusing and vague. And so, yeah, so Center for Children and Families also chalks it up to the fact that the federal government has been so opaque in their in their communication about this that the states barely know what to do. So fun stuff. That being said, you know, Mr. Rogers tells us to look for the helpers, Ben. This is true. So throwback, St. Fred Rogers is a living presence in my life every day. So, so there are some states that are actually really trying hard, I think, to deal with this situation the best way they can. California, I think, is is one of them. At least they're trying to deal with this. They actually at the same time that they made the notifications about the work required. They all. They've also enacted some procedural protections that are supposed to reduce coverage losses, right? specifically coverage losses that are caused by administrative churn, right? Bureaucracy gone wrong, wrong address, that kind of thing. So Newsom actually signed that into law just at the same time that they were making their announcement. So I think there are states that are really doing their best on this. And then there are other states where, you know, the governor is clearly, clearly, you know, out for poor people's blood and just wants to get into it, you know. But it's a rough situation and we just really want folks to know about what's happening in part because another thing that the Children's Center for Children and Families sort of arrived at was they looked at some data, polling data, that different states had done about whether recipients were actually aware of what was happening to Medicaid. And this will not shock you, but the overwhelming answer was no. Participants are not actually aware of what's happening. So there's very little awareness in the public. So please, if you are listening to this right now, go tell someone you love who's on Medicaid about what's happening and, and, you know, support them through the process of dealing with this onerous new law that's going to make their lives a living hell and, you know, maybe buy them some cashew ice cream.
Speaker 3Yeah. I was going to say, the even sadder news is that being on Medicaid is so stigmatized that often we don't even know who in our lives is using Medicaid.
Speaker 2You're so right about that. So right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Like we, this is just like everything else in healthcare, right? We just don't talk about it.
Speaker 3And. Well, I'm hoping, I know is not a, not a political podcast in the legislative, in the electoral sense, um, but you know, depending on the outcomes of this election, I'm hoping we can unfuck the situation as quickly as humanly possible.
Speaker 2So unfuck us now. Uh, well, I'm feeling better and better about the election every day. So that's something, um, I think it's partially because I got my psych meds refilled. Um, and then partially it's because Republicans just keep doubling down on their bullshit, Ben. Yeah. Um, and that actually gets into the, uh, another story I wanted to talk to you about today. Um, so, all right. Have you heard about this guy? Um, he is a Senator in Kansas, um, and his name is Roger Marshall. I literally had not
Speaker 3heard of him until you said you wanted to talk about him
Speaker 2today. Yeah, I know. Uh, I've gone down the rabbit hole on, on Senator Roger Marshall. Um, so Senator Marshall actually went into politics in 2016 when he was elected to the House of Representatives in Kansas. Um, and he is, uh, he, before that he was a doctor. Um, so, you know, he got a lot of that clout that we see when doctors run for office, you know, people, people trust the doctors. All right. So he ran for office. He stopped practicing medicine in 2016. Uh, right now he is a, actually a first term Senator. Um, and he is up for reelection against a liberal mega church pastor who is a really, really interesting guy and a really interesting candidate. Um, his name is Adam Hamilton. Um, and he's the pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. So that's like the largest Methodist church in the country. Um, it's like 25,000 people attend Sunday services between like different locations and televised services and the whatnot. He's like, you know, like a woke pastor, like kind of like Tallarico style, you know? Um, and he is not for Medicare for all, um, yet, yet, but he does support one of those like Medicare for all kids kind of incremental approaches where we expand coverage to include children and then move and, you know, whatever. So he does have some vision of moving towards universal healthcare, which is really awesome. Um, this race so far is that Ted Cruz actually called him a heretic for suggesting that people who don't accept Jesus as their savior can possibly go to heaven.
Speaker 3election year message, I think, uh, in certain percentage of your constituents to hell.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. He said that he had rejected the central tenants of Christianity. Wow. Okay. So this is the kind of election that's happening out there. We've got Marshall, the former doctor, we've got Hamilton, the, um, uh, a mega church pastor, um, who is woke, maybe too woke for Kansas, Kansas say Fox news. Um, but this recent article just came out last week. Um, and the hero behind it is Sarah cliff, um, who was an excellent reporter there at the times. Um, she, uh, reviewed, let's see, thousands of pages of court records. And she interviewed eight of four or eight of Roger Marshall's former patients. Basically what she found out is that he is actually a fucking literal monster, right? It turns out that before Marshall was a Senator, he was a doctor who liked to sue his patients over unpaid medical debt. Now he's burning in
Speaker 3hell, a lawsuit.
Speaker 2Yeah. Now who's burning in hell. Um, yes. So, uh, here are just some of the, here's just a rundown about Marshall, right? So this guy practiced medicine for over 25 years. Um, like I said, stopped in 2016. Um, he, while he was a doctor, he charged an 18% interest rate for unpaid bills to his patients. He sued 700, more than 700 of his patients in the course of his career for unpaid bills. And 81 of his patients got arrested as part of the process of collections, right? Mostly through, you know, you miss a court date and then the lawyers would ask the court to issue arrest warrants, which is, you know, just pretty extreme.
Speaker 3And, and then pause you for a minute here, Julian. Yeah, sure. I was just, I was Googling on the side. I was like, what, what specialty was he? Because there's certain specialties where, you know, I'm like, oh yeah. All right. Maybe a lot of them are assholes, but Ben, that's absolutely suing his patients. This is like ladies.
Speaker 2Like these stories are wild. And just like, I mean, this man is a literal monster. He was like, like, I have the same thought as you too. I was like, well, I mean, was he doing like celebrity nose jobs or something? Fine, whatever, you know? No, um, it, this was for OBGYN practice where he did a lot of family medicine. He claims on his, uh, Senate website that he delivered over 5,000 babies. Um, how many did he sue?
Speaker 3Does he see the baby too?
Speaker 2I think, yes. And he was also a pioneer in suing infants in the United States. That's the only one I made up. The rest of them was all real.
Speaker 3Your firstborn child is payments in lieu of money.
Speaker 2I mean, in addition to the lawsuits though, right? Like, you know, you can sue someone. You don't have to pursue the most aggressive option every time, right? So you don't have to demand that the court issue an arrest warrant to someone who hasn't, who's missed a court date for a collections issue. You don't have to. You don't have to, for example, file for wage garnishment when people don't pay their medical bills. And a lot of doctors don't, but he did. Um, and so, and then the final piece of this is that the collection process in some of these cases actually extended into his time when he was a rep, um, starting in 2016. So he was like, at the same time, he was both an evil house member voting to take away people's healthcare and an evil doctor suing his patients.
Speaker 3Yeah. And there are states that, that completely ban this. They don't allow you to take collection actions. Um, I don't think there's enough of them, but there are some, and a lot of states won't, if you will not let a credit, a medical debt be counted against your credit, because it is never your fault when you have medical debt, it is always an unexpected, unplanned medical emergency. Um, so, um, it, it's not indicative of like irresponsible, financial management. It's kind of literally act of God out of your hands. Um, so yeah, you have to, to really aggressively go after people and suing people is also expensive and he's essentially a primary care doctor, which means probably the bills are not massive. It's not like surgery, maybe 20, $30,000.
Speaker 2So yeah, the
Speaker 3bills that he sued
Speaker 2over went from a few hundred dollars to 5,000, right?
Speaker 3Yeah. So again, in the medical context, that's, that's not a huge amount of money. No, you really have to be motivated evil to, to spend, to hire a lawyer, to go after someone for those amounts. Most doctors just write them off. It's a, you know, it's a cost of business
Speaker 2essentially. So. Absolutely. Yeah. No. Um, and, and that's really, I mean, even his lawyers, um, said that, um, he said, they said, oh, Marshall didn't have anything to do with the arrest warrants garnishment. Right. So they made that decision themselves, but obviously he decided to hire them in the first place. Um, and, um, he did, they were very careful to point out that, that Marshall himself or Marshall's practice did set the 18% reimbursement rate, which is, you know, as you're saying, not normal, right? The article in the Times, which is amazing, I thoroughly recommend reading it. The whole thing just is mind-blowing. They talk a lot about exactly what you just said about the fact that doctors do have discretion, right? A lot of doctors do not actually pursue medical, do not actually charge interest on unpaid medical bills. There's a great organization called Undo Medical, and they undo, as in U-N-D-U, right? Yes, undo, yes, okay.
Speaker 3And so they point
Speaker 2out that most states don't actually regulate the amount of interest that a doctor or hospital can charge.
Speaker 3That's crazy. I didn't know you could make up an interest rate. There are actual interest rates in the world. That could be used.
Speaker 2And you have, like, some states that actually do, like, specifically cap the amount of interest that you can collect on medical debt. So, like, New York, for example, is, like, 8%, right? And in New York, if you charge about 25% in a usury case, usury, by the way, is the biblical crime of charging too much interest. It's literally, it's, like, one of the few financial crimes that's actually used. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of in the Bible. Again, burning in hell. But so usury is basically laws that govern how much interest you can charge. In New York, you cannot charge more than 8% on medical debt. And if you charge above 25% on anything in New York, on any debt, you can get tried under criminal usury laws. So this is, like, pretty serious.
Speaker 3I feel like a megachurch pastor on this usury. Case, I think, you know? Yeah, I know, right?
Speaker 2Yeah. Usury is something that needs to be tackled. And again, it sounds like Hamilton might be familiar with the biblical origin. So I would like to ask him about that.
Speaker 3Anyway. Can you hit me with some good news here? Can we, Roger Marshall, yeah.
Speaker 2Can I just do one more little thing here, though? Just really quick. I just really quick wanted to say that the. Yeah. So, you know, I think that in Kansas, just specifically, right, since this is all different state by state, the maximum you can charge on any debt where there isn't a contract that stipulates a higher number is 10%. And the max under contract for loans is 15%. But Marshall got away with 18% because he hired these aggressive lawyers to create a contract for patients that they had to fill out upon intake. So you walk into the doctor's office, and you sign a form saying that you need medical care. And basically, that puts you in debt to Senator Marshall for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3Good. Can you pay your debt off with servitude? Intentioned servitude? What century are we living in with this today?
Speaker 2I know, right? I assume, yeah, it's like a Dickensian debtor's prison type situation. I, yeah. So, fun story. All around, again, that's another one that you can just tell everything you need to know about the American healthcare system.
Speaker 3Let's just vote this motherfucker out. Is he up for election this cycle or no?
Speaker 2He certainly is. Oh, probably. Hamilton is running against him, the woke megatacker church presser. And I'm going to be talking with Jesus tonight, asking him to bless Brother Hamilton. Yeah. Anyway, but not all politicians are going to hell. Some politicians go to heaven. Ben, did you know that?
Speaker 3Yeah, they just have to pass through the eye of a needle first, right?
Speaker 2Hey-oh. It's good. It's good. Lots of Bible jokes this week. Oh, no. John, by the way. Oh, John. No, Ben, sorry. My partner's name is John. Ben is another person who I'm not married to. So— I won't tell him. Okay. He doesn't listen to the podcast, so there's no worry there. Okay. I don't even remember where I was going with that, so I'm just going to plunge ahead to politicians that are going to heaven. Okay. So you remember we were talking about Oregon last week, right? And we were following along the story of Ron Wyden, right? Senator Ron Wyden in Oregon is a guy who 20 years ago said that we should have all of our public healthcare programs run by private insurance. And he was right. He said that we should have all of our public healthcare programs run by private insurance companies. Then just a couple of weeks ago, he actually came in support of Medicare for All. That's great. And that is amazing, right? It's like so good. It's so refreshing to know that people can evolve and change their minds. And honestly, this has just reinvigorated my belief in transformation and everything. So I was always—
Speaker 3It's been for a long time, and it's been through the healthcare wars and lands at this place. I think it's meaningful.
Speaker 2It is meaningful, right? And so I was already jazzed about Oregon. And then I heard on Wednesday that Representative Janelle Bynum in Oregon actually just signed on to the Medicare for All Act. Yay! Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3All right. Oregon's killing it. I love it.
Speaker 2Oregon is killing it. It's a hotspot for Medicare for All. It's pretty cool. Her legislative aide emailed us on Wednesday to thank us for our commitment to making sure folks in Oregon have healthcare. And he says that the rep is excited to work towards that goal on the Hill. And she's going to be like a super cool member of the Medicare for All Super Friends, right? She's pretty cool. I don't know about that. No, the Super Friends. Super Friends, right? That's a good thing. That's comic books, right? Okay. So basically, she represents a place called Happy Valley, which exists. That's a place, a real place in the world. And she describes herself on her page as a, quote, "devoted sports mom and lifelong lover of all sports, the arts, and good barbecue." Wow. Okay. I like her already. I'm cool with that. And then finally, she also, a couple of weeks ago, she and Maxwell Frost introduced the Launching with Healthcare Act that would expand the provision of the Affordable Care Act that lets people stay on their parents' health insurance up to age 30. Nice, nice. Yeah.
Speaker 3And the expansion of the ACA.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she is a health justice fighter already. It's really, really cool that she has signed onto the Medicare for All Act. And in general, it is so cool what they are doing in Oregon. They're doing amazing organizing there that's really made Medicare for All a hot issue, the issue that politicians have to answer for. And they did it by going to the town halls, going to all the different events, and just constantly raising the issue. And they are amazing. And so I want to give a shout out to Rep. Janelle Bynum. Thank you so much. Welcome to the Medicare for All. Thank you so much, Janelle. Thank you so much for having me. We're looking forward to working with you. And I also want to give a shout out to Healthcare for All Oregon and their whole coalition and all the activists in Oregon who have raised this. And so I did an interview this week with our activist friends in Oregon to talk about the Ron Wyden issue. And now we have even more reasons to celebrate their work.
Speaker 3All right. I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 2Sounds good, babe. All right. Benjamin Day, I will see you again next time. Everyone, thank you so much for listening. And here are our pals in Oregon. Hi, everyone. I am Jillian, and I am so excited to be here with my two guests from Oregon. You may remember, those of you who are regular listeners of the show, that we recently had to make a tremendous apology to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. Previously, a few weeks ago, in 2006, I'm taking you way back in history here, Ron Wyden had proposed a healthcare plan that would provide universal health coverage for everyone in America, except that it was all going to come from private companies. His plan was to privatize Medicare, Medicaid, all of it, just hand it right over to Cigna and Aetna and UnitedHealth and let them go at it. But recently, he has actually gone through a change of heart and he has announced that he has supported Medicare for all. And honestly, I could not end my 2026 better than thinking about people who maybe thought we were wrong in the past, but are having that change of heart. And so this episode is all about celebrating people finding the right way, finding their way into the fold, and finding their way down the Oregon trail to the doctor's office. So thank you so much for joining me today. And I will see you next time. So we have here some folks from Oregon who are going to talk a little bit about Ron Wyden, and also how they've managed to in Oregon, a political environment where Medicare for all thrives. I've got Colin Stackhouse and Simon Hutton. Welcome, guys. Thank you.
Speaker 4Glad to be here.
Speaker 2Great to have you. So Colin Stackhouse is the Communications Coordinator for Healthcare for All Oregon. He is also serving on the Community Engagement and Communications Committee of the State of Oregon's Universal Health Plan Governance Board. I can't believe I got all those words out. It's the com, com, com of the State of Oregon's Universal Health Plan Governance Board. We also have Simon Hutton, and he is the Mid-Valley Healthcare Advocates Outreach Coordinator. He is the Organizational Director of One Payer State. And most importantly to me, he is one of our new board members at Healthcare Now. We're really excited to welcome him and to welcome him to the chaos, the beautiful chaos that is Healthcare Now. So. Very excited to have you both on today. Have I said excited enough? I am want to kick it off, though, by just asking you guys how you came to do this work. How'd you end up in Oregon? And how did you end up being the bad asses who, you know, created the conditions that changed Senator Wyden's mind? Colin, you want to want?
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, sure. I came to Oregon 10 years ago. So this is my my 10 year anniversary of moving to Portland. I grew up in Alaska. I went to university in Washington State, so sort of made my way south, no further south, intending to go. This is where I want to be. I worked when I first moved to Portland at one of these major hospitals doing the insurance verification and registration and also emergency room intake for different patients. And I really liked the, it was non-clinical, but I really liked interacting with patients and sort of, and helping them, you know, feel comfortable in the hospital and making sure that the hospital had all of our insurance, you know, information in order. A huge part of that job was our Medicare and Medicaid compliance. And so I gave, I ended up giving this one notice called the MOON, the Medicare Outpatient Observation Notice, to these Medicare patients who are, they're hooked up to an IV, they're in the hospital, they're in the gown. They might be spending up to 48 hours in the hospital. But this piece of paper that I physically delivered, you know, told them that they might have to pay a big bill at the end of their stay. And this paper informed them that there's nothing they could do about it and they could sign it or not. It doesn't matter. I was, I was delivering the information that their Medicare might not cover their stay and they might have a big bill. And some patients had a terrible reaction to it. I mean, so upset. And some patients had seen it a hundred times and were not upset. But just, it really hit home to me that in a system where these Medicare patients are finally, achieving our like, quote, socialized benefits, they've finally attained the Medicare benefits that they deserve, even then there's like, still the opportunity for them to have surprise costs. And so that's what sort of galvanized me to start volunteering with Healthcare for All Oregon. And then I've been working with HCAO for about a year.
Speaker 2That's amazing. Yeah. So many folks come to the movement through the process of trying to help people and finding out how fucking impossible it is based on our current system and then deciding they want to work on the system. Yeah. And they're like, well, let's help them a little bit more before they work in it some more. Yeah, absolutely. That's very, very cool. And also just like being on the front lines with patients is always a really sobering reality check about our healthcare system. Totally. That's awesome. Simon, how about you? How did you, how'd you end up in Oregon and how'd you end up doing this stuff?
Speaker 4Well, I've always been an Oregonian.
Speaker 2Oh, oh, pardon me. Sorry. I didn't realize.
Speaker 4Lifelong. Lifelong Oregonian. Yes. And, you know, I kind of ended up, ended up doing this because sort of around the time of the pandemic, I got involved with Mid-Valley Health Pradvocates, which is actually like kind of like a pseudo, we're our own independent organization, but we also sort of are a pseudo, you know, regional group within, within healthcare for all organizations.
Speaker 2We all get in an alphabet soup of coalitions and organizations that are all technically polarized. We're all part of each other in some way, but technically not in other ways. So, yes. So you are, you are part of the thing.
Speaker 4Yeah. And I got involved, you know, it's like a lot of people, you know, personal, personal experiences. You know, I had a, I had a relative that passed away due to cancer in no small part because they had, you know, they started feeling bad. They started having all these problems. And I think it was like when they were. 63, 63 years old. They were basically just trying to hold out until they had Medicare at 65, right before they went to the emergency room. And, you know, of course, it was one of those stories where at a certain point it became so severe that they couldn't ignore it any longer. They went into the emergency room and by that point it was stage four, right? But they hadn't gone in and sought treatment specifically because they were a contractor. They didn't have like reliable insurance coverage. And then they went in, which is a pretty common story. And the other thing that really happened that influenced me was I knew someone who was actually like assaulted, right? They were assaulted, ended up being taken in an ambulance to the hospital. No. And the next thing we knew, they had to go fund me because he says they had been physically assaulted. They now had $20,000 of medical debt. Right. And I just. It was like, I appalled that, you know, when we live in the wealthiest country in the world, but if you, you are physically attacked, you can still end up with a massive medical debt if you go to the hospital.
Speaker 2I mean, like, I have to say that, like, what does it say about our country that I was more startled when you said the word ambulance than when you said the word assault, right? I was like, oh, well, people get assaulted every day, but God, don't take a ride in the ambulance. That's so expensive, you know? And so. So, yeah, that is maybe our health care system is a form of assault, actually. Interesting to think about. Let's think about some harm reduction folks. Well, this is great, though. Both of you guys coming in through those personal experiences of facing the bullshit that is our dystopian health care landscape in this country. And now y'all are fighting for a single payer in Oregon. You know, we did want to take. We wanted to. We wanted to use Senator Wyden's as as a change of heart, his change of heart, making some very niche health care news. It's big news for folks like for folks like us maybe did not make the front page of the Oregon Times. God, I should have looked up what the paper of record is there. Oregonian. Oh, the Oregonian. Yeah. But big deal for us. Why do you think that this is the moment, right? Like, why do you think that? This particular moment has provoked this kind of a change of heart in Wyden and not just Wyden, but many, many more what we would say, you know, Democrats who have been more moderate on this issue before who are kind of coming around, coming to Jesus, if you will, on Medicare for all. What do you guys think? What prompted that? And then how did people react to the news in your community?
Speaker 4I mean, Wyden has been, you know. This has sort of been a long, a long process, right? I think Colin might be able to speak to this, but like there's people, you know, aside from us who are part of health care for all Oregon, Mid-Valley health care advocates that have been regularly attending events from one thing of Wyden's. One of the things that Wyden does, which I appreciate, is that he does put in an effort to hold town halls in like all the different counties around Oregon quite often. And, you know, fairly often. And so, you know, we're showing up and we've been showing up every year for a while to those basically consistently asking him if he would sign on to support universal health care, Medicare for all. And his position has sort of slowly, slowly moved over time and up until this, which was a bit of a surprise, actually. You know, he said, I believe he said that we need Medicare for all. He did. You know, I'm not. He hasn't really dug into the details. Sure. And so I'm it's very great to hear him say that what Medicare for all means for him. You know, I can't we can't be 100 percent certain. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this, Colin. But my you know, we can't be 100 percent certain that what Medicare for all. For him means for us and, you know, how that will translate into action. But I think to a large extent, the credit to whatever amount we were involved, the credit can go to advocates, you know, activists in Oregon showing up for years and asking that question over and over again, really like pushing for it. What are your thoughts on that, Colin?
Speaker 1I think that's true. Jillian, I didn't realize until a conversation with you maybe a month ago or just a few weeks ago calling out that run wide in between in the early 2000s. He was absolutely, like you said at the beginning of this episode, against sort of this, quote, socialized universal health care system wants everything to be into the private private sector. Yeah. So the hundred and eighty degree from this current stance of saying that we need Medicare for all, I believe so. Simon, correct me if I'm misremembering this, but I believe it was in the middle of his town halls, like Wyden was doing these healthcare town halls around the state, and it was at one of those town halls is when that quote where he said that we need Medicare for all came out, right? So, you know, he didn't get caught off the cuff. I mean, he made those events, and so he and his team must have decided to say that at some point. I think that the writing's on the, I don't know, the writing's been on the wall for a very long time, but you'd think maybe people are starting to see it, and apparently, yeah, interested to see if the Democratic Party, like Ron Wyden's interested in, oh, supporting their number one issue listed in their 2025, like, campaign. The Democratic Party of Oregon, you can see their list of priorities, and universal healthcare is literally the number one priority on one of their lists, right? And so it's cool that they're, you know, going back to their roots and going back to what they, you know, said they were. Hopefully, they're interested in saving lives, saving money, being moral, being Christian. Hopefully, they'll, you know, find that, find one reason to support this issue.
Speaker 4I just, I think one thing that's really exciting about it is, you know, back when the Democrats had control of the Senate, I believe, it was the Finance Committee. Wyden was running. Yeah, Wyden's still the,
Speaker 2Wyden's still the ranking member of the Finance Committee, actually. He just recently did a request for information about healthcare. We're going to be announcing, actually. At Healthcare Now, we're going to be collecting some stories to submit to that request for information. But, yeah, so, I mean, he's not only, right, he's not only the senator from Oregon signing on to the bill, right, but he's an important member of the Finance Committee as well, which is really, really significant. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,
Speaker 4and if the Democrats manage at some point in the future, let's hope. Just because Democrats tend to be more aligned with the goal of getting healthcare, universal healthcare. I would prefer them, you know, being in control of the Senate. And if he, and if they manage to get control of the Senate and he retains, he's basically the chair of the Finance Committee and having someone in that position also be a supporter of Medicare for All could be really great. And I hope, you know, indications like that, like Colin says, we always like, we like to imagine the writings on the wall. It's always been, it's been a very long fight, but hopefully this is sort of like a. I really like, I really like how,
Speaker 2like, how both of you are kind of moderated in your responses. I kind of imagine that as being the vibe of the Pacific Northwest. But, yeah, so, Colin, go ahead.
Speaker 1Well, I just wanted to say, like, I just wanted to clarify that my voice in this podcast space is mine, my own Colin Stackhouse. I'm not representing Healthcare for All Oregon. Our nonprofit is not saying we hope the Democrats find a spine. It's me, Colin Stackhouse, saying that there's a hateful spine. It's been terrible. And, yeah, I hope that they can find their spines and, yeah, find a platform that matters.
Speaker 2That's awesome. We forgot to go through the ritual part where people say, don't worry, the rest of my organization isn't saying the crazy thing that I'm saying here. Not that it is crazy to say that the Democrats need to grow a spine. I think their doctors probably say that on a regular basis. So, yeah, no, absolutely. But I do love the fact that you guys are like, well, I don't know. We don't know if Medicare for All or whatever. So, real buzzkill, guys. Let's celebrate a little bit. Not so much you, Colin. Can you make that noise again, Colin?
Speaker 1Thank you. Can we all do it together? One, two, three. It is good. It's good to celebrate. I mean, it is a 180 degree shift from two decades ago. And, yeah, we're happy for it.
Speaker 2I think it also, like, I mean, it really does speak to the kind of importance of this long term organizing, right? It can be very, very difficult. It can be very depressing to show up at every town hall every year for 20 years, right, saying you need to pass Medicare for All, you need to pass Medicare for All. Bill numbers barely change, right? But what happens, right, is that folks develop a relationship with this legislature, legislator, and then through that relationship, they're able to agitate them around their values. And a big shout out, by the way, to Mike Huntington, who I know was one of the people who was attending those on a regular basis. And we get to work with him. We get to work with him a lot at Healthcare Now and love him very much.
Speaker 4I just want to say, yeah, and I want to echo that because Mike Huntington has been the lead that has been getting people every time there's Wyden coming through and doing an event. It's Mike who is, Mike is vice chair of Mid-Valley Healthcare Advocates, secretary of one pair of states, you know, and he's always, always pushing people to get out and attend events in person and make these requests. Which I think, on aggregate. I think it really matters, you know?
Speaker 2Yeah. No, absolutely. Way to go, Mike. You are fucking right. Way to keep getting people out there. We love it. Love it, love it, love it. So, in addition, though, to talking about Ron Wyden, I can actually even more rather talk about the organizing that you guys are doing on the ground. And I think that, you know, one of the ways that you manage to persuade someone like Ron Wyden is that you make the entire environment of the state a place where. People are pro Medicare for all. And I think that you've done that in a bunch of different ways, right, both by bird dogging your federal legislators, but also by creating this amazing state campaign for a statewide single payer system within Oregon. Do you want to talk a little bit about how that campaign evolved and, you know, how that sort of contributed to this kind of overall, like, really making making Medicare for all go viral in Oregon?
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I think we're sort of in the development of the. Yeah. I mean, I think we're sort of in the development of the. campaign now, and it's going to be health care for all Oregon, Mid-Valley health care advocates, a bunch of other people in our coalition. So to a large degree, a lot of it's out of our control. But health care for all Oregon and Mid-Valley have been involved in developing this process for forever. We've been around for 25 years, but like for decades trying to get these puzzle pieces into place for that's not the right metaphor, but setting up the pathway that this this thing could exist. So currently what's happening in Oregon is that we. We have this group called the Universal Health Plan Governance Board, so it's a group of nine members this they were created by a Senate bill in 2023, and they've been working for about. And you're one of them, right? Not quite. No. So it's nine. I applied to be on the board, but I wasn't selected, but they chose several quite a few people around 50 of us to serve on different subcommittees of the board. So this nine person board is developing the plan, which they are obligated to deliver back to the legislature. On December 1st and the plan is for how we can finance administer and transition to a universal health care single payer system, or as close to single payer as we can for a single state. Yeah, so they're delivering that plan in December, then they then in the twenty twenty seven legislative session, which in Oregon is our long session. So it's several months instead of just a few short weeks. And is that right, Simon? Is it a few months? Doesn't matter. You're more you're even more of an expert than I am on this. Fact checkers are going in this fact checkers. Expertise. So in the twenty twenty seven session, they will be considering the many, many problems that are in Oregon. Our budget shortfall, our problems with education, our current problems with like H.R. One coming into effect in twenty twenty seven. And they also will have this plan from the Universal Health Plan Governance Board in front of them. And our effort, our campaign is to like make them not ignore, you know, their six years of work that has already gone into the development of this plan, which just by default. Of being no other state is at this exact moment. So we will have the best plan of any state of moving towards a single payer system. Yeah. Our goal is to have them refer to it to Oregon voters for the twenty twenty eight election. So in twenty twenty seven next year, we're going to be pushing for them to do that. And it's been a long time coming. So there's this board, the current governance board in which, like I said, I was on a subcommittee helps with some of their their legislatively prescribed communications to different groups around the state. And we also give a different kind of forum for Oregonians to speak to us. That group's been in effect from twenty twenty three until now. There was this other task force from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two, which laid a huge amount of the groundwork. So three years of work in that group of humans. This group of humans has also been working for about three years to develop the best plan possible. I could go on forever, but it is like juicy and complicated and sort of feels like we're shift shifting from what we're doing. I'm like advocating for them to build the best plan possible for us to. Now we need to switch gears and advocate with our legislators who are building the legislative concept and actually writing the bill and make sure that it is going to be something that that we can something that we can win, you know, when we move to vote on this.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you're like way down in the weeds of this process. Right. But in the meantime, you're reaching out to regular Oregonians who might not know anything about the process. Right. Can you talk a little bit about what your outreach? Both you and Simon, you know, because I know that you're you're both communications guys. So, you know, how is your outreach going and how do you kind of take this very complicated process and really distill it into something that Oregonians can plug into and get behind?
Speaker 4Well, I mean, I think I actually think I Colin just pointed at me, but Colin really is locked in with like, you know, reaching out, figuring out different channels, especially social media. I mean, I am not social media isn't quite my forte. Right. And I think Colin's been doing an excellent job. job of using platforms i mean one of the really most important things is like um we have to build awareness among oregonians that this is even happening right i mean this is and this is the the key thing is it's like it's such a big such a big deal for us i think you could go up i mean i would be shocked if even one in 10 oregonians in a lot of cases has any idea that the potential universal health care plan even exists this is always the challenge right right um go ahead
Speaker 1colin yeah oh i would yeah the jillian the way you described it made it seem like we're being very successful at our communications statewide and i would say we um definitely cannot be complacent with that um we're working okay you know simon and i both do social media for our various um for one peer states and valley health care advocates and also health care for all oregon oh we healthcare for all oregon does things called community conversations where we'll bring a speaker and or a slide deck to you know rotary clubs or schools or whatever and talk to people about what's been going on so that's like one way we get out there trying to spread word of mouth uh is i think important um social media has it's hit or miss and sometimes when it hits well when there's like a lot of engagement a lot of it is very negative um engagement against this issue but you know no press is bad press i guess i've started a uh podcast so we have the it's a brand new podcast the health care for all yes
Speaker 2the health care for all podcast i'm so sorry i missed that at the beginning and i forgot and it's not because you're a competitor podcast
Speaker 1i promise unbelievable no no no i want i we i want to interview you on our podcast i think more is more um fair fair so that's that's one way we have a newsletter we finally sort of uh reached this goal of having um 50 000 people in the health care for all oregon database and so our state population is 4.2 million so 50 000 is a small fraction and we're encouraging them to you know spread the message i think if anyone's listening to this knows anyone in oregon can you please just tell them that this is a possibility i think it's actually
Speaker 4and you know i don't want to be like a downer by expressing that it's it's just it's difficult to get the word out right i mean these days um i think one of the things that we run into partially in sort of like whenever any sort of message is trying to be spread in like a specific geographic area i mean a lot of the older forms like newspapers like centralized sources of information right like people just don't pay attention to those as much it's very hard to connect to people and so like colin was saying going out into the community consistently over and over and over again yeah right all across the state holding these events um because you know obviously some people are just going to support it as soon as they if they see see it on the back as a ballot measure but some people need to be spoken to and you know really convinced that this is the solution we need um and i mean yeah i honestly health care for all oregon has seen real growth in the last year or two and i think one of the really hopeful parts of this is you know it's all timing right at the end of the day a lot of like i don't know if i'm going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it and i think you know i think it's going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it but i think it's going to be able to do it but any of these any of these political goals it's about sitting around and showing up for years and decades years and decades just showing up and showing up and then so that when the opportunity comes when the starters align if you will right they're we're ready to take action and with the hr1 which colin mentioned which is the i'm going to use finger quotes here big beautiful bill right yes yes yes he's going to be responsible for so many people falling off of medicare you know we were already in a crisis this has exacerbated it um this is a opportunity if we really show up and get out there to try to bring people around to the idea that we can do something better
Speaker 2yeah
Speaker 4yeah yeah yeah yeah well that
Speaker 2is um i mean uh yeah no that is uh that is so true right it's like such a slow process um and it's there there really isn't a shortcut unfortunately you would hope that uh you know uh that we would be able to tweet our way to success but unfortunately getting out there and meeting people is still a thing have you heard that facts
Speaker 1facts don't change people's minds i know crazy crazy
Speaker 2you're not going to persuade me about that um um i also i do really like this modesty this sense of um you know being um you know kind of even-handed about things is that the cultural vibe of oregon like is that the the cultural vibe of oregon like kind of just like you just seem very um reasonable and um you know kind of level-headed is that what oregon's like love
Speaker 1that i love that we give that off bliss simon and i
Speaker 4i maybe i'm maybe i'm inside maybe i i'm i'm too deep in oregon what are your thoughts colin having come here 10 years ago i don't think that
Speaker 1i'm can speak to being the most i'm not the most even-headed person in the in the world i mean i think that this the hardest thing with this effort is just trying to get people to know about it i mean i think simon and i have been talking to our friends consistently about this for years now and still new people are like i have no idea what you're talking about and you're like yeah that's that's why we're talking we we need to make everyone in oregon know about this yesterday what which is a little unrealistic i in in my fantasy we touch every book not touch but like you know are able to be in touch with everybody in the state of oregon and let them know about this possibility but a fear is that it'll get onto the ballot and people won't still somehow won't have heard about it for you know the
Speaker 4next two years the challenge there the big challenge there is of course that it's like it's all it's it's certain that a ton of our out-of-state money is going to flood in if this ends up on the ballot and it's we're going to have you know 20 30 40 million you know who can say exactly of spending against it and that's that has to be overcome i mean you know as you know money does make a difference right and they can just absolutely fill the airwaves with anti-messaging against it um and and that's inevitable right so it's inevitable they don't the the people who are making money and profiting from our current way of things don't want any crack in the wall and any single state getting universal health care passed is a crack in the wall
Speaker 2absolutely yeah yeah they have to defend against it with all yeah i mean we saw this um for example in um in massachusetts we did a uh ballot initiative about safe staffing for nurses right and we found that you know money was coming in not just from the hospitals in massachusetts that didn't want to have to implement safe staffing but also from all over the country right because again once something good happens in one state that's a threat to everyone who wants to do evil everywhere um so uh yeah absolutely there's going to be a lot of anti-money but i think you guys are up for the challenge and the fact that you know that it's a slow grind has i think emotionally prepared you for the process which is good yes very good so as you're organizing in oregon uh you know obviously from this conversation you can glean that i don't know a whole lot about oregon for a brief moment i recruited for nyu in portland so i just wanted to give you guys a little bit of background on where you're from and where you're from and where you're from in oregon and
Speaker 4what's happened to powell's books um it's all you need right i don't know you're
Speaker 2you're you're in location our most famous location in the state yeah yeah you guys give me easy admission to oregon i will tell you that you can be a new jersey native if you eat pizza at the jersey shore right um so uh that's fantastic uh so um what are what are some of like the only in oregon challenges why why is oregon as a particular state um why do why do you need a better health care plan in oregon and and and why uh what are some of the things that you're facing that are really you know kind of unique to oregon itself
Speaker 4well i i can i can i can kick off by sort of talking a little bit about um i think a unique challenge um and there's there's there's good and bad parts of this but oregon is the least populous of the three west coast states right obviously there's california which is enormous population-wise huge um but even you know washington state up to the north is bigger um and this means that like that you know in some ways it's good i think by my reckoning and this is just purely me you know me just sort of observing things between the three states there's an advantage oregon is a little less there's not quite as many you know big really oh yeah corporate interests and those sorts of things i mean of course we have them but like you know it's not quite like obviously not like california and washington state has seattle which is like this huge center of of like really you know big tech companies and stuff like that so yeah wherever there's where wherever there's money super concentrated there's going to be more obstacles in dealing with those interests right um but also in some ways you know and this is this is maybe not an interest not so much a uh a question of um i mean we definitely need universal health care but also just with a smaller population there's there's challenges for people creating uh a health plan because of course like you know the large you know as larger populations um can make some of the questions about how to like fund a universal health care plan maybe the math the math works out a bit easier i mean i'm interested to hear your thoughts on this colin um but you know there's there's reasons that there's been discussions in the past obviously of immense complexity of like oh well we could maybe all the west coast states could come together and have a plan because that makes a much bigger
Speaker 1population yeah yeah yeah and
Speaker 4that sort of thing
Speaker 1uh yeah like one of the challenge concurrent with what you just said about how we do have a smaller population we also have a smaller population of like billionaires like we don't i don't even know if we have one or two but like washington and california i think have several many perhaps and so yeah the the financing component of this statewide universal health care plan you know one of the topics was brought up like a wealth tax but the wealth tax that would be most effective in washington or california wouldn't really affect many of our wealthy in oregon not to say we shouldn't consider it i think obviously i think it's worthwhile still um up for discussion um as far as like so currently most of our a lot of our state already is covered under medicaid or medicare so i think a third of oregonian children are on medicare and a third of oregonian children are on medicaid and i think half of the state is on either medicaid or medicare uh it's or close to it so i might even be two-thirds oh terrible i can't recall uh so we already have the functioning systems that are doing well in oregon and we actually are a lot of like cutting edge or cutting edge policy so our expanded oregon health plan um offering medicaid to more of the population has been really beneficial and i've been on medicaid in the past i'm on like a bridge program right now because my income increased which is good but um congratulations well thank you so much definitely definitely is wild looking at that whatever that poverty line is um but uh yeah so we um we have successfully done uh things that are like cutting edge and like patient forward like did you mention the corporate practice of medicine bill simon a minute ago or i
Speaker 4was about to you should bring it up oh great
Speaker 1so yeah we're i'm going to bring up this corporate original medicine bill yeah so we're like the our oregon passed one of the um most restrictive limitations on corporate ownership of uh hospitals and other clinics right so it has to be majority owned by a physician or a provider um trying to limit these private equity groups from practicing medicine without a license and owning these clinics and like making their their care subpar right so that's another example of how oregon has made successful moves in the past i do want to comment on a uh this is not unique to oregon but is unique i think to lots of states that have sort of like a red blue divide and just in you know eastern washington i believe also has this kind of attitude but there's a lot of frustration with um people in the valley i didn't even know that the valley was a way to describe a big part of oregon but between portland right between portland all the way down to cottage grove oregon there's a lot of frustration with people in the valley i didn't even know that the willamette river and so the willamette valley is where our urban center portland our capital salem our biggest university in eugene this sort of like this blue strip of high population farmland that often decides a lot of the policy for the whole state which you know you go east it's massive desert i mean it's beautiful and huge out towards eastern oregon but a lot of people feel like they are led astray by some of the work that's happening in by the blue people valley right so that's a unique and even perhaps you've heard of it but there's like this movement to have like a greater idaho movement which i don't think will be on the ballot again this year but but there's a lot of people in eastern oregon frustrated with the work that's happening in the willamette valley and what's happening in salem which is in the valley and so there's like a movement to leave and become part of idaho which i don't happen i'm sorry um you know but yeah i don't i don't think it's i don't think it's the right move but you know i'm not i don't live in those those communities but so yeah that's so we've oregon has a history of some uh geographic discrepancies and challenges and also some good work that's happened in the past what about you simon what do you think
Speaker 4well i mean yeah i mean like the the rural the the divide between east and west is huge here right and it's and it's tremendously difficult to overcome um i mean you know it's it's it's the usual thing the usual problem where we have this huge i mean the the majority of the state which a lot of people don't think about but it's it's it's it's it's because don't necessarily know about because you know people think of oregon they think rain they think you know the greenery you know temperate rainforest but the majority of the state is high desert um over in the east geographically right and it is very true i mean like the population is so sparse out there they just do not have the population to really you know they're usually overcome by um by the people in the western willamette valley in terms of numbers and that's why it's one reason it's so important to try to actively recruit and get out there um i think you know not even there's there's some of there's some resistance even as well to just have people from the valley if you will like you said colin just come out and be like let us tell you how it is you know we're coming out to your community but more more importantly finding people in those communities people that actually live out there um that can right you know the problems these communities are having because like a lot of these i mean it's it's the usual thing with hospital closures clinic closures that's getting rural communities harder even than like less rural communities um and it's really it's it's really rough and and uh i do want to give a huge shout out to what colin talked about these which the the bill to control the corporate practice of medicine it's the strictest law that's been passed in the country um intentionally designed to prevent the spread of the virus and to prevent the spread of the virus and to prevent these private companies from essentially having a you know doctor's own quote-unquote health practices essentially a name only right um there was recently a big case which uh which happened in uh colin mentioned eugene where our largest university is um actually a uh the hospital they're closed and basically it's and it's a pretty big it's a reasonably you know it's not a huge city but it's a it's a it's a big city for oregon sure sure and uh and they actually ended up without a hospital like the town the sort of like suburb next door the springfield is it springfield colin is that the place with the yeah that's the that's the one with the ended up being the only place with with a you know emergency room uh and they all got like all the patients got funneled there and the hospital network tried to end it their contract with yeah emergency physicians yeah i think i heard this story yeah but for no small reason because that law was passed um it was uh they were able to retain their contract right and so i think that you know this it sort of shows how the issue is multifaceted right we can't just universal health care is a big piece of the puzzle but there's a lot of other problems that are that we still need to deal with and i think that's a big piece of the puzzle right um yeah
Speaker 2yeah absolutely
Speaker 4right um uh
Speaker 2that's yeah absolutely true similar very similar to some problems that we're having in texas as well it's always that juxtaposition of urban centers where people are constantly bumping up against each other and you know want less friction and then the you know rural places where there are sparser populations and people want more connection to each other right and it's a uh two kind of competing needs you know um and i think that's um yeah absolutely uh you know i i really appreciate you guys being here tell me what's what's your next big thing what's the next big thing going on in oregon uh health care for all
Speaker 1oregon has a lot of big things going on are we have a if you're listening in the corvallis area we have a fun run on saturday the 3rd in portland on the 4th we have a musician's issues we're having doing like a speaker presentation for musicians about how universal health care could benefit them in december we have some of our final lobby days where we're getting our volunteers to speak directly to their legislators um and then in the january session we're going to be learning i feel like i need to watch um schoolhouse rock like a bunch of times to just understand how it works but we're going to be trying to encourage our legislators through testimony and one-on-one conversations to make the best bill that they can and actually refer it to us so that we can decide for ourselves whether we want to move to this obvious solution of universal health care um anything else that we as a state are missing simon or anything in mid valley what's going on
Speaker 4i mean i think uh i think the the potential for a universal health care bill after going through this process and this was a long process you know we we passed yeah multiple pieces of legislation passed first there was uh you know the i was uh see if i can remember all the numbers was a 101 that's that added to the oregon constitution that health care was 111 help me help me out colin 111 111 there we go that was that amended the constitution to say that that like health care was a human right
Speaker 2right right right
Speaker 4And then and then there was basically and then we passed a bill 770 to basically create a task force to talk about this. And then then the bill was next bill was passed to create the universal health plan governance board. And now that's been operating. It's been like, I mean, this really just illustrates it's such a long process that has to keep building on itself. And now that we're working on the potential of the legislature actually working on putting together a bill and deferring it to voters, that's yeah, it's number one in my mind. As far as Oregon goes, this is the yeah. And amidst and as I think I alluded to earlier, I think it has a tremendous amount of potential because unfortunately, things are at such a crisis point with health care in this country, which is bad. That's all. It's very bad. Very bad. Yeah. But since we are there and this is coming in as a choice people can make to make things better, I think there's a real opportunity. And so that's what I'm laser focused on in Oregon. That's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. That is fantastic. It is so good to hear. I really I think you guys are going to do it. Although technically as a national organization, health care now loves all of its state affiliates the same. We think you all have the best plan for universal health. Care and we think you're all going to be the first state to make it. Please, please, any anyone, please, please. It's definitely not a competition. We're all like, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Please, please. Absolutely fabulous. Well, thank you, boys, for being here. I really appreciate it. Thank you to Senator Ron Wyden. My deepest apologies for forgetting that people can change and do the right thing. And you have opened my mind. Today to the possibility of forgiveness and healing. So I want to thank our podcast team, especially our audio editor, Craig Stanton. Please remember to like, subscribe, comment and share this with your friends. Also, remember to listen to Colin on the health care for all podcast. You can get all of your podcast fun on your favorite platform. This podcast is a project of health care now education fund, the organization of which is the health care for all. Simon is now on the board and you can support the pod by going to www.healthcare-now.org and clicking on the donate tab to send us some love. Thank you so much, everyone. Everybody stay safe and stay dangerous. We'll see you next time.
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