Distinguished economist, Robert Pollin, joins us to share his ideas on a progressive more egalitarian economic agenda. And Dr. Steffie Woolhandler tells us why doctors and other health professionals want a single-payer, Medicare for All healthcare system.
Robert Pollin is a Distinguished Professor of Economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. He is the author of many books on economics including Back to Full Employment and Greening the Global Economy.
“There’s no evidence that countries that have “more flexible (labor) markets” – meaning fewer social protections – perform better, even by standard measures like GDP. This has become one of the myths around globalization: that the only way under a globalized setting countries could compete is by worsening conditions for ordinary people.”
Robert Pollin: co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a practicing primary care physician, distinguished professor of public health and health policy in the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health at Hunter College, adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Woolhandler is a co-founder and board member of Physicians for a National Health Program, which is a non-profit research and education organization of 20,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals, who support single-payer national health insurance.
“Medicare for All would mean that everybody on the day they were born would get an insurance card that would pay for all medically needed care at the doctor or hospital of their choice. For doctors it would mean that everybody came with the same coverage; and we no longer had to worry about would the patient come back to see us for follow-up or would they decide that’s just too expensive… that’s not pie in the sky. That is the way that the single–payer systems work in countries like Canada or Scotland.”
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler: co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program
A More Progressive Economic Agenda