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The Midterms Gave Universal Health Care Fangs · Paging America

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I got a tip for the Republicans.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: You guys got to just keep running pharma lobbyists. Yeah.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Pharma lobbyists at every level of the ballot.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Run a pharma lobbyist in Nevada.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Run a pharma lobbyist in Utah.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we really need a pharma lobbyist in the ballot.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Keep running these guys, these despicable profiteering ghouls.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Keep having to be their standard.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Rob, it's our first time recording since the space radiation came down
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: and cleansed these lands, these United States of America.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and cleansed my feed.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Cleanse my feed.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: My feed is so lovely right now.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't give me anxiety.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think my heart rate settled down into the 50s again just while I'm swiping through.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's feeling pretty damn good to just think
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: about like a reset, you know?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oops, pause, reset.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's start this thing again. And that's great. How are you doing?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we saw each other on election night.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're both down in Detroit. Yep.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Celebrating a number of victories, massive victories here in Michigan,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: but really just like looking out over the landscape of like everywhere.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's not anywhere that there wasn't celebration going on.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling really good.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think like, I think in Michigan in particular, I think the thing, the scene of Dr.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Abdullah Said, Be elected after what was probably one of, easily,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: the most overtly racist, bigoted, awful campaign from the Rogers people.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And have him just win, you know, pretty decisively.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: And what that means for, you know, human decency.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: That one makes me feel good.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then to watch all these routes throughout the American South,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Texas in particular, Mississippi looks like it could go.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so exciting.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: For folks tuning in, we are going to cover,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: there's plenty of election analysis you can go get in a lot of different places.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to be focusing today on what some of the elections mean for healthcare
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: and healthcare policy.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And some of the positions that the newly elected senators took.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, welcome back to Paging America,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: where we explore the power and profit shaping American healthcare in your home base
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: for news and interviews of people building the universal healthcare movement.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, campaign strategist, Myles Baker.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Dr. Rob Davidson.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we have a great show for you today, and we will be doing some gloating.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: We will be feeling ourselves a little bit while we do this.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Rob, so as we recorded on this Thursday following Election Day,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: we have new Congress that is decidedly blue.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats now control the House with at least 240 seats,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: with some people suggesting it could go as high as 255.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you had said we're going for 255 pre-election day, people would have been like,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: get out of here. 218 is the magic number to hold the House.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: So they have it. They have it easily.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a comfortable margin.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate as well with at least 54 seats.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: It could go as high as 56.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: As of recording, Alaska and Mississippi have not been called.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats also flip governorships in four states.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is despite Elon Musk spending half a billion dollars on behalf of Republicans nationally.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he came up Short on every race that he invested in.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because 60 votes are needed in the Senate to overcome any GOP filibusters,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Trump retains the power to veto any legislation passed by Congress.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: We're in for at least two years of sort of divided government,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: and I think it's going to be pretty brutal.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Unless. Unless.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Unless they just cater to his whims of decorating and they kind of fluff him up
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: a bit about how lovely the new beams are in the ballroom,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: if you saw that little press conference clip.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then just sort of, you know, I don't know,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: slide something in front of him and say, people are going to love this.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know. Anyway.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Give them the ballroom to get Medicaid cuts back. That's what I'm saying.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Give them the ballroom. We can tear it down later. Give them the ballroom.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get Medicaid. Or just repurpose it. Yeah, repurpose it. Turn it into a museum.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Make it a free clinic. Free clinic in D.C. Make it a free clinic.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Make it a part of the Smithsonian, yeah. All right.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Trump said, vote like I'm on the ballot. So we did.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: But health care was on the ballot as well.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the results in the U.S. Senate are proof.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: We want to take you guys through a super clip.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: If you weren't tracking the We're gonna take you through a super clip
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: of what they said during the campaign as a reminder on what these folks wanted to do
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: on healthcare. Can we throw to that?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: I make a pledge to every single Iowan and every single American out there
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: in the US Senate, I'll be fighting to lower your healthcare costs and ensure
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: that every American has access to affordable and accessible healthcare.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: There's going to be a mission for me when I go to Washington.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: Battle these insurance companies,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: make sure that Washington steps up
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: and unlocks the key to affordable health care. It's game day, Ohio.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's Roy Cooper from North Carolina.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Ohio Stadium holds more than 100,000 fans.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: You could fill the stadium five times.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's the number of Ohioans who will lose their health insurance because of John Husted.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: 500,000 Ohioans.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: These budget cuts go through.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's Sherrod Brown winning Ohio by just by five.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: Tens of thousands of South Carolinians will lose their insurance.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: And that will be my number one priority.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Dr. Annie Andrews, friend of the pod.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: She won South Carolina.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's one in 50 Kansans.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's just not OK. That's indecent.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's not who we are.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: And that's Adam Hamilton in Kansas winning by five.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't care to be
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: the person standing here in front of all you,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: I cared about people getting a government that works for them You know,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: people That can compete with the for-profit health insurance companies
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: in this country. I think if we do those things,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: we can guarantee health care for millions of Texans and millions of Americans
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: because I believe that health care is a human right.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that was James Tallarico winning Texas by an impossible
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: to even consider 12-point margin in this Lone Star State.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: I, okay, that's a great, Rob, what are you,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: those are all great healthcare positions for the incoming Senate class.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and let's say, like, at this moment, we still have two races that haven't been called.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: These are the ones that flipped from red to blue, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Red to blue Senate seats.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't include Dr. Abdul El-Salid.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we have to include his position on healthcare.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: We know his position on healthcare.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're there for it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, Mississippi, Alaska, I mean,
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: these issues were absolutely on the ballot for folks.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And people came out and said, yes, sure, Trump on the ballot, yes, we're voting against Trump.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But they're voting for something.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in all of these cases with all of these candidates, their health care message,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: their basic economic message of wanting to help the constituents of their state,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: they were voting for that, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever the detailed analysis of political insiders may or may not be.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is what people are doing.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're saying this administration promises something and they're not doing it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And these folks who are now going to be part of our Senate said they're going to do it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go do it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Some interesting results from national exit polling that NBC News did.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: The Democratic, regardless of who you support,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: which party you say is better to handle health care,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: or 50% said the Democratic Party, 30% said the Republican Party.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: So that's just overwhelming.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: The Democrats all consistently, basically since we've been doing this podcast,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: we've been looking at which parties trusted more on healthcare
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: and the Democratic Party starts high and has gotten even higher over the course
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: of the election season.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: But this was the really interesting one, Rob.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think the federal government should play a bigger role, a smaller role,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: or about the same role as it does now in helping Americans get healthcare?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And 60% of people said a bigger role, with only 21% saying a smaller role,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: and about the same at 18%.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, 60% of the country thinks
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: that the federal government should be more involved in getting healthcare.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's a jump from, you know, Obamacare days.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. And I think the scare tactics of the right are like, you know,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: they use a lot of the kind of the boogeyman stuff.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly here in Michigan, you know,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: they accused El Saeed of being a terrorist and like
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: the horrible racist shit they were pulling on him.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But still, you know, They still try to pull out that, oh,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: do you want the government getting involved in your healthcare?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: People are saying, yeah, because United Health Group and Humana and Cigna and here
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: in Michigan, Priority Health.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're not, right? Oh, they are. They are controlling it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're involved in it, but they're all taking profit.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're all making millions of dollars off of it on our backs.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you're damn right we want the government to do something about it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, thank you.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, finally.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the gross profiteering by all the industries involved in healthcare,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: the drug companies, the hospitals, the insurance companies,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: it's just so obvious now and so displayed for people.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to explain it to people.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they're saying, yes, we're dying here, literally dying, so please do something.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right. I was thinking think, like, United Health Group has death panels.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, the thing that they say that the federal government, like,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: back in the Obamacare days when they were like, there's going to be death panels.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Prior authorization is a death panel.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that, like, and it is, and that is so much, you know, and that's present,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: and all of these companies are doing it,
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: and they know it's bad because they try to pretend that they don't do it,
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: and they do, like, press that they're, like,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: doing less prior authorization because they know it's just such
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: a despicable practice.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it takes, like, McKinsey Consultants and makes them your physician instead
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: of your physician.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I think people are starting to realize this and how bad it is.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So let's take, I want to run through a couple of races
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: that we were watching really closely that had healthcare,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: that had sort of significant tie-ins with healthcare.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: So Rob, first, we saw that Adam Hamilton won.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Dr. Debt, Roger Marshall, the Kansas OBGYN who sued his patients, had some arrested,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: got clobbered.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it seemed that the thing that his gross healthcare industry practice
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: of sending people to debt collections,
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: who then some were then ultimately jailed over that,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: That really is what undid him as a senator,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: and it sort of exposed to the world that he was terrible
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: on all these different fronts, or exposed to Kansas, at least.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any special parting words for Dr. Roger Marshall?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, good riddance, man.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, of all the doctors I talk to, and I do, right?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And our work in advocacy, talk to doctors around the country, certainly in Kansas,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: but here in Michigan, on election,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I talk into other docs who are there who are interested.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that...
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: That story of Dr. Det and the practices.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then him, I mean, we didn't even talk about this because I think it came out
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: after we recorded last time where he made his own video, went rogue.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: His advisors and campaign folks don't make
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: a video explaining why you sued He's like, well, we had to keep the lights on.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, the guy made three quarters of a million dollars in the midst of all
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: of that time suing people for a hundred bucks, landing them in jail.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: But he was keeping the lights on.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what the hell kind of lights are you buying, Dr. Depp?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a pearl clutcher per se, but like doctors were like offended.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, screw you, man.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do this.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't tell people that this is just normal practice. It is not.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's predatory. It's gross.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what it did is it got people in Kansas instead of saying, oh,
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: this Generic Republican that we just vote for because we're Kansas.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this guy and like, oh, shit, this guy's really bad.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's like a bad guy. He's a bad politician, bad senator, just like a bad person.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, it seemed to be the undoing of him.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, good. Good for him.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Just to note that the Committee to Protect Healthcare organizing
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: that happened down there was really cool.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Over 750 medical professionals signed out. They came in.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the times it's harder to get doctors and nurses
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: to You can organize them around a ballot initiative,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: but it's difficult to do a straight partisan race like that.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, the Kansas medical community was just fed up and really came out
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: against Roger Marshall.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that was cool to see.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: To see healthcare professionals say, let's get organized and let's go beat this guy.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: In Michigan, which was just a Republican wipeout that, I mean, it's like,
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: you have to go way back in the history books to see the margin they got
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: in the state house.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: We're at like a never saw before 24 all-time high in my lifetime in the state senate.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: All three house seats flipped.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Tom Barrett, that guy who was imperiling his own in the Lansing area, they were closing clinics.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a straight line from his votes to healthcare deserts in Ingham County.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And he got wiped out by Will Lawrence, who's been on the show.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Congratulations to Will.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Jocelyn Benson, who ran on a healthcare affordability
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: platform, Just vanquished John James.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, it was like a brutal, brutalized him.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is he done, right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who may not know John James that well,
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: this is his third time running for statewide office.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Each time just getting completely spanked.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: In bad years and good years and Democrat years and Republican years, he just keeps losing.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, please, that's enough.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Go get a job, go get a show on Fox News or start your own podcast and go
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: and just do your bullshit there.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, obviously being probably the most exciting race,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: campaigned explicitly for Medicare for All,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: focusing on healthcare throughout the entire campaign, start to finish.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Just one little note, just to do a little bit of election analysis.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: I know we were going to do all election analysis.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: They tried to
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: say that Black voters in particular were gonna defect
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: because that there was, they used the Black church in Detroit as a prop.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Haley and Mike Rogers did that.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: They, um, which was, like, there was, like,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: the list of ways that their campaign was, like, bigoted and prejudiced was, like,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: really hard to, like, list it all out.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: But that one, I think, was, like, particularly offensive to people.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Mike Rogers didn't get 5% in the city of Detroit.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Abdul cleaned up in the city of Detroit and it was all bullshit.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if you were looking at data throughout the election,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: it always looked like you kind of knew they were lying, but they said it
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: enough that you're like, well, maybe they know something we don't know.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know anything. It was all for narrative purposes.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, in in in tough primaries and tough divided primaries,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: you're having certain cohorts of voters on the Democratic side were siding with one.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Haley did have a significant portion of the African-American vote
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: of the vote out of Detroit in the primary that Abdul did not have.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then the narrative was, well, because they were against him there,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: this group of people who understands what Mike Rogers is doing,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: has done to their communities and would do, they're going to go with this guy,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: like Haley did, inexplicably, but what? Whatever.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not spend too much time on that.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the people who she supposedly was out there defending and supporting were like, hell no.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the backlash against her kind of trickled over onto Mike Rogers as well.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so wait, Haley, you've been using this community
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: as a prop this whole damn time,
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: that's all it was does feel like that's part of what happened.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I really, it feels like that's part of what happened there too.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: It does feel like that is part of What Happened.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Also like you.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Was watching the ads, but you don't get a sense of the frequency of ads,
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: like how the ads are landing with you until you're in-state and you're turning
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: on a television. I was just in love with how much Dr.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: El-Sayed used Mike Rogers' ties to pharma in their ads.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: That he is just this big pharma shill, because that's what he is.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's a big pharma shill.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: He's always been a big pharma shill.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's on and off their payroll.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's always been this garbage pharma lobbyist.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, the lowest rung of humanity is the pharma lobbyist, is the big pharma lobbyist.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what Mike Rogers is.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And Abdul clobbered him with it.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was awesome.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been here.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how excited it was to watch on Hulu yesterday and have zero.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's all back to just weight loss drugs and ED and all that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: No more political ads. Oh, my God.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't live in a swing state.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, like, I'll be one person to say Michigan has an early state in 28.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Screw that, because now I'm going to have to deal with this shit from, like,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: 20 different candidates. Anyway.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: We move on. We move on.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so Dr. Annie Andrews, who's a friend of the pod, she beat Darlene Graham.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: She won South Carolina by four points.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: My brain also has a hard time with that, getting my head around that.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: She is just, she's been a healthcare ad.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: We've known Dr. Andrews longer than when she was running for Senate.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when she was a healthcare advocate and she's, um, and she is,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: she's gonna be a great person in the Senate for American healthcare.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: She's such a good, she's a, um, she's a pediatrician.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: She just thinks about things really well on, on,
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: on issues of healthcare and she's deeply knowledgeable about it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's awesome to see her in the Senate and to have another ally, uh,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: for the universal healthcare movement.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. I have family down in South Carolina.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that text ring was going strong like all night.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they actually live in Nancy Mace's old district
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: where Annie Andrews challenged her a couple cycles ago, I think, and came up short.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they now have a Democrat representing them in that district as well.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: In the U.S. House, in addition to having Andy Andrews as their senator.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the exciting thing for me is when you look across and we do know Andy, right?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But just looking at the public persona of some of the other candidates, I mean,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: it feels like Roy Cooper can probably keep that seat as long as he wants
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: to be there. He's a politician. He's a very popular guy in North Carolina.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: But like Adam Hamilton, people sometimes look at this.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: You remember when Doug Jones won Alabama,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: and it was against this horrible monster of a Republican candidate.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Doug Jones got voted out the next time.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: You look at the people coming in.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Andy Andrews, what we know of Andy Andrews, these are quality people.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not that Doug Jones wasn't that, but these are- Alabama's also the hardest.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: But Andy Andrews is going to go in there and represent the people of South Carolina,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: put good in the world, try to do good things,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: and be able to go back to the state and say, look what the hell I'm doing.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fighting for you people.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I'm six years from now, yeah.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: South Carolina's- It's also one of the fastest growing states in the country.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so you actually are probably experiencing quite a bit of demographic change.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: And not to take anything away from Annie Andrews,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: but that the state could be changing in ways that we just maybe weren't caught up
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: with.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Still gonna be a pretty conservative place for a while.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Let's keep going.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's a great one.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is on some governor's races and what implications there.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Amy Acton is a physician who completed residence in pediatric and preventative medicine.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: She formerly led the state's health department, and she
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: soundly defeated the other big pharma, Shilvy Vikramaswamy, by eight points.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, eight points in Ohio.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing to spit at.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's something.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And after he ran a campaign ad that was so offensive that it actually shocked
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: the Republicans in an era when Republicans cannot be shocked.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and she's great on health care issues.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: And she'll be a stopgap because that that the state house
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: in Ohio is filled
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: with used to be sort of like a business -oriented Republican Party that lasted well
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: into MAGA. But very recently, it's taken this really ideological turn.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's really megafied in the Ohio House and Senate.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so having a stopgap for some of this stuff,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: particularly on reproductive rights and some other things
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: that the Ohio Republicans just can't keep their hands off of is great to see.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was chatting with a friend of ours, Dr.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Anita Samani, who's a state senator down there in Ohio.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's an OBGYN.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And just like just what you said there,
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: like having someone at the top who understands these issues and who can be a check
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: on this ridiculous state house in Ohio,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: like that's that's that's something they're all looking forward to.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you know, hey, man, as a Michigander, we shit on Ohio once in a while.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Ohio, for getting rid of Vivek Ramaswamy.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: May this be the last time he runs for anything,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: and we have to watch him hit a tennis ball or hit a baseball?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, please, be done.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I got a tip for the Republicans.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: You guys gotta just keep running pharma lobbyists.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Farm-a lobbyists at every level of the ballot.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Look, run a farm-a lobbyist in Nevada.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Run a farm-a lobbyist in Utah.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we really need a farm-a lobbyist at the ballot.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Keep running these guys, these despicable profiteering ghouls.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Keep having to be their standard pair.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, in Wisconsin, David Crowley, he absolutely whooped Tom Tiffany over eight points.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Wisconsin, historically, it's, you know, goes back and forth.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to, like, run out the margin on either on left or right in Wisconsin.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because people are so sort of in their partisan camps.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wisconsin's voters also flipped both chambers of the state legislature, giving them a trifecta.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Rob, you know this about me.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: One of my very early political projects is I did a lot of organizing
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: to recall Scott Walker, which was Which is ultimately not successful
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: after he passed Act 10 to break the unions.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we've been sort of living in the Walker era in Wisconsin since 2011 when he passed Act 10.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this is Scott Walker erasure, man.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: They are just gonna rip up the floorboards on everything that guy did.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be so sweet to watch.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, we were together on election night a bit
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: and it felt like you were pretty emotional about this.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know you live in Chicago now, you're a Michigan guy originally,
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: but like Wisconsin, it takes up a huge space for you
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: because of the organizing you did there, I know.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But for us as healthcare advocates,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: like besides erasing Scott Walker and the legacy of him, like this is huge.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: David Crowley ran on public option, like public option in Wisconsin.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: For those who aren't tracking every state,
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: if you look at a map of where they have not expanded Medicaid,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Wisconsin is the only northern state where they haven't expanded Medicaid.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: They've even done the Dakotas.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's crazy.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it was because the speaker of the assembly there didn't want to do it,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: and he held on with an iron grip for so long to not expand Medicaid.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to expand Medicaid right away.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's like table stakes.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: The Democrats are going to expand Medicaid.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: But then what's so exciting is David Crowley Saying,
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I want a public option and I want that public option housed in the government.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's not, you know, his position on this is don't route it
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: through United Health Group, which is one of the biggest insurers in Wisconsin.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do like a regulated plan like we've done.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the other public options, Nevada and Colorado,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: looks more like it's a public option,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: but it looks more just like a highly regulated plan administered by whatever
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: the corporate entity is of like the primary insurer in the state.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's saying, no, no, no, no, no.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Laboratory of Democracy, let's go build a public option that's actually housed
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: in the government and get these profiteering, you know,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: get the evil empire out of the equation.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Get UnitedHealth Group out of the equation and let's set this up.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see if he can do it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: not like waving a magic wand.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's hard.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's got big budget implications.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: But man, it would be sweet to see.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna have...
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: The most amount of money and lobbying and ads and attacks against it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ground zero for the people versus the profiteers in healthcare.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe kind of foreshadowing January 21st,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: 2029 and what we want to start in DC at the national level, right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like having those fights, but being able to define for the people in Wisconsin,
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know, what's at stake, showing them like the evil empire and all that they do
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: and what government, people said it,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: they want government more involved in healthcare, right?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: What government can actually do to make their lives better with legislation on healthcare.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the petty part of me, that's another part.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've been very happy, my timeline, but also a little petty about certain things.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because Speaker Voss, who had the iron grip on not allowing Medicaid expansion,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: he didn't run again, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, he saw the tea leaves and said, ooh, I'm not going to be in power.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And, like, stuff like that just drives me nuts.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm glad here in Michigan.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: You wanted Voss to have.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: In the minority.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You wanted him to feel the pain.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Matt Hall here in Michigan, right? Matt.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Excessive majority in the House, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: 62-48, 63-48, something like that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to have to sit there in the minority and be like, oh, man,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: look at this whole thing. That, to me, feels okay.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to have seen the Democrat win that race.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, having him sit there and suffer while they undo everything he did
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: the last two years.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: A couple years, just for a couple years.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: I like it. I like it a lot. Matt Hall. Yeah.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm interested.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Speaker Voss in that era of Speakers of the House in the Midwest.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you got Ohio, you got Illinois, you had Michigan.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Almost everyone had someone get indicted or go to federal prison because of corruption.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Voss was always the one that felt the slimiest, but he never got,
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: no one ever pinned anything on him.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be interesting to see what they uncover when they,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not making any allegations here,
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: but it's going to be interesting to see once the Democrats take over power
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: in Wisconsin, what they come up with.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because that guy hung on to power for a long time when he really shouldn't.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can make allegations.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's still a public figure.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So as long as you believe them to be true, it is protected speech in New York Times v. Sullivan.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So go ahead.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, sure. That's fun.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so then just one last thing
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: to cover that's got big health care implications is there are new trifectas in.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Michigan, prescription drugs on the ballot, a state-based marketplace.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Minnesota, new trifecta.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot they can do.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: They've explored lowering prescription drug costs.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: They've explored public option insurance.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Nevada, they have a public option, but they need, you know,
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: the fact that there is a trifecta now in Nevada,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: it's going to be way easier to implement it.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Pennsylvania got a trifecta.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And hospital consolidation is a big problem in Pennsylvania.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Prescription drug pricing is a big problem in Pennsylvania.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's going to be a lot of different things they can go take a look
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: at in Pennsylvania with that unexpected win in the Senate.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: For context, the Senate's really hard to get in Pennsylvania
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: because of the way it was gerrymandered, and Pennsylvania got it.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Great job, Pennsylvania.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Arizona, as of taping right now, they're still counting the votes.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like Arizona is headed for a trifecta.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not really sure we even know what's possible in Arizona right now
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: because the trifecta seems so out of reach that I think there needs
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: to be some planning on what needs to happen in healthcare.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: But obviously, healthcare industry is so enormous in Arizona
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: because so many people retire there.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's lots of work to do.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then Texas, the crazy one, Texas,
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: it looks like they have not ruled out a trifecta in Texas.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think the Senate is a couple seats shy. No, no, I know.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's a couple seats shy, but they're still counting.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: They have not ruled it out as of taping right now.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Very hard, but it does seem like it's gonna come down to one or two votes.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but here's the question in Texas, and maybe you know the answer to this,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't, or you can just pontificate.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ted Cruz famously went out on his show and said,
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am the only statewide elected Republican left in Texas.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is a statement, right? Ted Cruz.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he said he wants to work with James Tallarico, all that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one thing.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any Republican Texas senators
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: who would entertain something expanding Medicaid, right?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Something like, I mean, because if you could expand Medicaid in Texas, I mean,
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: the most populous state, I think it's the lowest insured state in the country.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the most underinsured state. Most uninsured.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And underinsured state in the country. I don't know. Why not?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have to think about that, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: The ability to potentially do that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the incoming governor, Hinojosa, and the House, which did flip the Dems in Texas.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: But could we get a couple of Texas senators who said, oh,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I actually want to help out these whatever folks.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think a couple things.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think the incoming governor can use Medicaid expansion as leverage
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: in budget negotiations and should absolutely do it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: It makes no sense for Texas to not expand Medicaid.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's a huge amount of federal dollars.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it just doesn't make any sense.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, and if you don't,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: I suspect that the Republicans in Texas are not used to negotiating with Democrats.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: And this is gonna be a painful process for them in which they're gonna have
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: to learn new skills to, like, listen and talk.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think Medicaid expansion will become
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: appealing unless you just have
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: a real ideological project there in the state senate.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think the money just makes sense in Texas.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is that Texas Republicans are mercenaries.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the writing's on the wall.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Texas is not snapping back to be...
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: It might snap back from where it was on Tuesday night, but it's not.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's directionally going one place, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe these, you know, I don't know, let's go on a recruiting spree.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not fun to be in the minority if you've never been in the minority.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know what it's like. Get in, guys.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: We'll take a, you know, be Ahmad Demp and let's switch teams.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: We got plenty of them. Big 10. Big 10.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go recruiting in Texas and see if we can get one or two of these Republicans
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: to switch if the trifecta comes up short.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think that makes a lot of sense.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a fun project for somebody to do. I want it. But somebody.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: You want to do it. I want it.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Someone in Texas should do it.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want help, call me. Call me.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then what the hell happened in Georgia, Rob?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: So Democratic Governor Keisha Lancebottom,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: along with two Democratic US senators,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: Lancebottom was described this way by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: In 1860, an enslaved man named Shepard Peake was listed among the possessions
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: of William Peake, a white man in Crawfordville.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: His value is placed at $1,400.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: On another surviving document, Shepard signed his name with an X.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: More than a century and a half later, Shepard's great-great-granddaughter,
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Keisha Lance Bottoms, is Georgia's new governor.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely incredible.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that, yeah, that Georgia's gonna have a Democratic governor.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it, uh, you know, Georgia has, Georgia did, like, Medicaid expansion light,
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: sort of like a wimpy Medicaid expansion.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's implications for Medicaid there.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know - They flipped the state house, right?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think they flipped the state house in Georgia, I'm pretty sure.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was messaging with a friend of mine down there, Scott Holcomb,
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: he's a state rep, and he and I did our MPH together.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: At Michigan a few years back.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we were classmates in an online program.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I quick got on and said, Scott, what the hell is going on in Georgia?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, yeah, I think we're gonna get the house.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, let me know if you've got things going on.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: He said, oh, I do, and oh yes, I will.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: So people down there, they're thinking, yes, we can do something.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, maybe it's that. Maybe it's true Medicaid expansion.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: So in the healthcare space, man, just so many possible places.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's just very exciting.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's like, it's wild what has happened in the American South.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just, I had kind of like,
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, some of these places look more democratic than the upper Midwest after,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: after last night.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like that, that, that's just like the coalition in midterm elections.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: I, we have to do, we, we're not gonna, we're not gonna like make stuff up here.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's like more, more interesting thing to see.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's some more analysis that has to happen to the vote.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: What was the coalition that actually showed up?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Was it Republicans collapsing?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: Was it progressive surging?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think there's more to learn there.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: But man, some of these states look just, they look like a totally different place overnight.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really something.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and if the narrative that lots of, you know, we had people on,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think Timmer talked about like the red undertow, the blue wave,
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: like both things can be true, right?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Both things were true.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: The red undertow and the blue wave come together and created the tsunami per Perhaps.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right. But but but the red undertow is like, hey,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: these guys have been in charge and they are screwing everything up
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: and our lives are worse.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: So however you get there as Democrats, fine. Don't don't worry about it.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about if they elected you because they thought you were great
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: or they just thought the other one sucks so bad they wanted to give you a try.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like go and prove that prove that you should be there.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like do something for people.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I saw I saw I think Wyden put out a statement
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: about the massive things they want to do in D.C.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: related to health care and kind of keep holding corporations accountable.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I said, yeah, hell yeah. Like game on.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Take some big swings and like do this.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Prove to people that you deserve to be governing because you're actually looking out
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: for their best interests.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to health care, it's just like it's just.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that it's simple. It isn't simple. Doing it isn't simple.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: But, like, what people want is pretty simple.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: People want to be able to afford healthcare.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: They want to have it accessible, affordable.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so do that.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dude, just do that.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Just do it.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: One story that I think is just worth...
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: chatting about here, because it has obviously big implications for federal health policy.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: And just for folks who haven't listened to the show for a long time,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: I worked on gerrymandering in Michigan as a campaign that I was very involved in,
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: and then also the implementation of the nonpartisan Commission in Michigan,
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: which gave the sort of fairest maps, like one out of 50 in the country,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: bipartisan standards.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: But if you want to go back in time to earlier this year,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: Trump's bidding Republicans in several states redrew and gerrymandered,
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: like redid a mid-cycle gerrymandering, like a mid-decade gerrymander,
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: which is just unheard of in America.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: We just haven't done that in America in a very, very long time.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: It was cheating.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's cheating.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that the Democrats have to make illegal, that you can't do that anymore.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't a rule, it was a norm, and they broke that norm.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: And these dummies, it's called a dummy-mander when you try to gerrymander
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: to give yourself an advantage But you don't give yourself enough of an advantage
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: and a big wave election happens here and it wipes you out.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And in Texas, it was like the dummy-mander to end all dummy-manders
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: because they had assumed that the Latino vote was now a permanent part
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: of their coalition and there isn't a group of people in America that ran further
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: and fastest from the Republicans this election cycle than Latinos and Latinos
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: in Texas. And so they just got absolutely wiped out by their own design.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that rules.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love it. Yeah. And I don't know.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know it well enough.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you have looked at this. Maybe not.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to put you on the spot.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Were there any places because part of them doing
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: the gerrymander is they they make some districts that were, you know, Democratic,
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: make them into Republican districts.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: But to do that, they have to pull Republicans out of other districts
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: that they considered safe enough that it didn't matter.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is there anyone out there?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do we see anything where they some of those seats or we don't know
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: that that's that's a level of detail.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I my brain doesn't get around.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I need to do a little bit more reading to understand.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we'll come up with a little list at some point of all the places
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: where the Dummy Mander got him.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, uh, but I will say the one that was really sweet was the Bobby Polito seat.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, that, that, and it wasn't particularly close there at the end, you know?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he won by 15 or something.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that was a seat drawn to be a Republican seat.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the Rio Grande Valley, The level of voting, the partisan nature of the voting,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: the Rio Grande Valley
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: erupted in terms of its disgust
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: over the Trump administration's interior enforcement of immigration.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was a thing that mattered a lot. It was great to see.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was great to see people get
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Kick them up inside that one.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what, Trump got his wall on the border because if you look
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: at the Rio Grande, it is a blue wall of new elected members of Congress.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good one, man. We got it. We got it. You got it.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: You got a wall. Finally.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Give him the ballroom. Give him the ballroom.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Get back with the Medicaid and we can complete it and then get him the hell out of it.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, awesome. Republicans lost two U.S.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: House seats that they already controlled and flipped only one
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: of their five gerrymander targets.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: So they're trying to, so they just, it didn't work. It was a dummy man.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was a total dummy man.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it was awesome.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Rob, what's next?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: What's gonna, we've been chatting for a while now.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: What's coming up?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: What are you most excited about?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know we're not, you know, it's gonna take some time.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: There needs to be a Democratic president to get to universal healthcare.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: But holding Republicans in the Trump administration accountable, Robert Kennedy,
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Bobby Kennedy in front of Democratic, Uh,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: investigatory bodies is something that I think...
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Danny Andrews and Abdul El-Sayed,
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: one or both of them better be on committees that RFK Jr.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: is gonna have to sit there, popping at zins, grumbling and growling...
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not just, you're a bad guy, here's some statistics,
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: but questions from people are like, dude, I'm a doctor.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what the hell actually goes on.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Especially these two.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: We've been talking all along, they're bullshit, Abdul, doctor, not doctor.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Dude's a public health doctor.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: RFK Jr. attacking all institutions of public health, like tearing it all down.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Annie Andrews is a freaking pediatrician, you know, like the group of people,
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: the nicest group of doctors.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you, ER doctors are kind of dicks. That's fine.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I am.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Pediatricians are just nice people.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: You get a sticker and a lollipop with your shot when you go to the pediatrician.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so like having these two grilling that guy and like bringing the receipts,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait for that.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing, not just oversight on the Republicans and the monsters
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: at RFK Jr. and Dr.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oz and all of them, but bringing the industry folks,
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: the profiteers that are making this episode, bring them in. That's right.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if we're going to offer some advice to the Democrats, we will,
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: if some Democrats For sure.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Is that like, yes, there needs to be oversight on the palace monsters
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: of the Trump administration.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: That has to happen.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the place where people are getting hurt at scale are the profiteering excesses
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: of UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Aetna and CVS.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like These are the folks that need to account for their crimes.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the Trump administration does too, but as we get ready for reform,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: it is the corporate targets that, you know, That you really got to shine a light on.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone already knows Bobby Kennedy is mad as a bat.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's bursting with madness.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he's doing things to make money and be weird in the government.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people already know that.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: But what we don't know are the practices of these opaque
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: public corporations
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: that are just making astronomical levels of profit.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, hey, Josh Hawley, I don't like the guy.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's a complete goon, right?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's horrible on reproductive health care.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: He ran away from the J6 insurrectionists while pumping his fist.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the first thing he tweeted out this election is that we need to break up,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know, break up big medicine.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like he and Elizabeth Warren have a jointly sponsored bill to break up big medicine, right?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Taking apart the sort of vertical integration of folks like United Health Group
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: in particular, the most egregious player.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: The evil empire.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, let's do this. Yes.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And, hey, Democrats, you guys are not all clean and rosy on this, right?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of you folks get money from these folks, from their corporate PACs.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to go improve your constituents.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: You are not in the bag for these people.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're actually representing your constituents.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, that needs to be a huge part of the next two years. Yeah.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Getting legislation passed that does wholesale reform and change,
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: bringing more health care to more people beyond budget negotiations
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: over maybe ACA subsidies as a short term gap beyond, you know,
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: peeling back some of that some of that Medicaid,
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: the Medicaid cuts like that has to be a big part of it.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Setting the stage for January 21st of 2029 when you can like hit the ground running
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: and make make real change. Amen to that.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: One of the challenges here is there's going to be leadership.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think Schumer, I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to speculate.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: This is speculation, everybody.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think Schumer probably does not want to do an AOC primary.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think he maybe tries to make a deal.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be the majority leader, but then I won't run again, so I got a two-year timeline on it.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's really hard to do healthcare reform if Chuck Schumer is as close
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: to the hospitals in the next two years as he was in the past two years,
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: in the past four years.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like there is a real problem at having the Senate Majority Leader be
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: as cozy with the hospital industry as Chuck Schumer is.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I will just say this, like, I think Chuck Schumer did some things that are good.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Chuck Schumer does some things that I don't agree with at all and I think are sort of lame.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: But this coziness with the hospital industry needs to come to an end.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: It just, you can't, you can't get costs down.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: For healthcare consumers
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: or for the overall rising cost of the whole cost to the government.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very hard to get to universality of any stripe, of any variety,
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: if the hospital industry is so mobbed up with the Democratic Party and it needs
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: to come to bed.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: People go after big pharma, big insurance all the time, but it is an unholy trinity.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Big pharma, big insurance, and the massive hospital consolidation networks that are
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: the undergirding of all of that cost. So you're exactly right.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe unburdening him with the need to get reelected could come in a Jesus moment.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Give him a little room there.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and have some space to take on.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: I like the advice you're giving.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: I hope someone gets this to Chuck Schumer. It's great advice.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Great advice.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Rob, I think that's probably enough for today.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: But awesome to be with you, talking this all through.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm still going to be smiling a week from now. Yeah, definitely.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just like, hey, man, if I look like a goof with my grin,
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: if you're watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe anyways.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: It won't last forever, but maybe another week.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah, please do subscribe.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: I will say this, if you're a physician or a healthcare professional who's listening,
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: there are going to be so many healthcare campaigns to expand access,
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: to rein in the excesses of big pharma and big insurance,
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: to put oversight on hospitals at the state level.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: So much forward progress needs your participation.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: In the months to come, Q1 and
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: Q2 and next year,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: there are going to be so many campaigns to get people more healthcare
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: and to get better and to make American healthcare better.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you in advance if you end up participating in them.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: We want to see you out there. So today's episode was written by Chris Savage, Dr.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: Rob Davidson, and me, Miles Baker, Paging America, The Situation Womb,
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: and all of our on-call segments this week were produced by Peter Ogburn
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: and Chris Savage.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: All shows were edited by Peter Ogburn and April Stewie.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: Our music is by Annette Somerset at Duneflower Productions.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: And if you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and make us a rating on YouTube,
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: Your support helps others discover the podcast.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: You can also follow Paging America on Substack.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: Physicians, your voice matters.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Join the fight for better American healthcare by becoming a member of the Committee
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: to Protect Healthcare, and we'll get you involved in one
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: of these healthcare campaigns that are going to be all over the place.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Rob, yeah, I hope you have a great rest of your day.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think you will.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just enjoy. Just enjoy. All right.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Great talking to you.