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Democracy Now! continues to closely follow the movement to reform the healthcare system in the United States. We have interviewed policy makers, doctors, patients, independent journalists, academics, single payer healthcare advocates, and filmmakers.

  • "America’s Pro-Choice Majority Speaks Out." By Amy Goodman

    February 09, 2012 | Blog Post

    In the wake of the successful pushback against the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood, the Obama administration should listen to the majority of Americans: The United States, including Catholics, is strongly pro-choice.

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    After Right-Wing Campaign, Leading Breast Cancer Charity Komen Drops Funding for Planned Parenthood

    February 02, 2012 | Story

    The nation’s leading breast cancer charity is under intense scrutiny for its decision to cut off funding for breast cancer screening programs run by Planned Parenthood. Susan G. Komen for the Cure has confirmed it is withdrawing support for 19 of Planned Parenthood’s 83 affiliates, citing a new policy barring funding for any groups under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. Planned Parenthood’s finances are currently the subject of a probe led by anti-abortion Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida. "If you look at all the government reports which have already been done on Planned Parenthood, they’re completely cleared of any of the charges that Cliff Stearns claims he’s looking for. So this is a witch hunt," says Jodi Jacobson, the editor-in-chief of RH Reality Check, who recently wrote the article, "The Cancerous Politics and Ideology of the Susan G. Komen Foundation." We also speak with Patrick Hurd, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia and a recipient of a 2010 grant from Komen, and his wife, Betsi Hurd, who has participated in several Komen fundraising events and is currently battling breast cancer. "This isn’t about fundraising," says Patrick Hurd. "This is about making sure that we provide access to women, that we continue to provide education to women, that we continue to serve the women in the communities where Planned Parenthoods are located." [includes rush transcript]

  • Steven-nissen

    Medical Whistleblower Dr. Steven Nissen on "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare"

    January 23, 2012 | Story

    As the Republican presidential candidates propose to dismantle President Obama’s 2010 healthcare reform package, we speak to Dr. Steven Nissen, one of the nation’s leading cardiologists. His research into Vioxx and Avandia led to severe restrictions by the Food and Drug Administration, reducing the use of both drugs. Nissen is profiled in the documentary, "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare," which is being featured this year at the Sundance Film Festival. The film tackles the powerful forces behind the battle over heathcare costs and access. "Healthcare has become such a huge business that the forces that don’t want change—the insurance industry, the hospital industry, even physician professional societies—have so aligned to keep the system as it is that it’s very hard to overcome that," said Dr. Nissen, who chairs the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. "My fear in this election, because of the Citizens United ruling, is massive amounts of money from people with a huge stake in making a profit from healthcare are going to influence the electorate with just an amazing amount of money." [includes rush transcript]

  • Sperm_egg_web

    Mississippi Rejects Bill to Grant Pre-Embryonic "Personhood," Outlaw Fertility Aid, Birth Control

    November 09, 2011 | Story

    Voters in Mississippi have overwhelmingly defeated an amendment to establish that a fertilized human egg is a person, despite support for the measure from the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor. If passed, it would have made Mississippi the first state to grant constitutional rights to embryo from the moment of conception. We speak with Diane Derzis, owner of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. She notes supporters had hoped to use the Mississippi measure to mount a legal attack on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the right to abortion. "If you make a fertilized egg a person, not only have you banned abortion immediately, you have banned most forms of birth control, as they work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. That’s very clear. There’s no two ways about that," Derzis says. Efforts are underway in at least six states, and at the federal level, to adopt similar laws. [includes rush transcript]

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    "Deadly Monopolies": Medical Ethicist Harriet Washington on How Firms are Taking Over Life Itself

    October 31, 2011 | Story

    One of the major themes raised by the Occupy movement is the increasing power of large corporations over more and more aspects of our lives. We spend the hour looking into the issue of the corporate control of life itself. Our guest, Harriet Washington, is a medical ethicist and has just published a book that examines the extent to which what she calls the medical-industrial complex has come to control human life. In the past 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone—many more patents are pending. Washington argues that the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies patenting these genes are more concerned with profit than with the health or medical needs of patients. Her new book is called "Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself—And the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future." [includes rush transcript]

  • Tiller_web

    Colleagues of Slain Kansas Abortion Doctor George Tiller Continue His Fight for Reproductive Rights

    October 19, 2011 | Story

    A federal judge has blocked the impact of one of the laws aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood, ordering Kansas to restore federal family planning funds to a clinic that claims it suffered "collateral damage" from the law because it would be forced to close, leaving 650 mostly low-income patients without access to reproductive healthcare services. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, and the unaffiliated Dodge City clinic, are challenging a law requiring the state to first allocate Title X funds to public health departments and hospitals, which leaves no funds for specialty family planning clinics. This is just the latest development in Kansas, which saw the murder of one of its staunchest supporters of women’s access to abortion: Dr. George Tiller. For more, we are joined by Julie Burkhart, who worked for eight years with Tiller before he was killed in 2009. She is the founder and director of the Trust Women Foundation and PAC, which focuses on protecting women’s access to reproductive healthcare, as well as the rights of the physicians who provide these services. [includes rush transcript]

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    Michael Moore: Health Insurers Use Costlier Premiums to Fund Campaigns Against Critics Like Me

    September 29, 2011 | Story

    Healthcare costs for insured working Americans continue to rise, with premiums increasing nine percent for family plans over the past year. In this part of our interview with filmmaker and author Michael Moore, he discusses how health insurers have used the funds they receive from premiums to try to undermine their critics, including Moore himself. A health insurance company whistleblower, Wendell Potter, previously revealed in a Democracy Now! interview how industry executives plotted to undermine Moore’s 2007 film "SiCKO," which took on the for-profit U.S. healthcare system. [includes rush transcript]

  • Us-poverty_web

    U.S. Census Reports Reveals One in Six Americans Are Poor, One in Five Children Live in Poverty

    September 14, 2011 | Story

    A new U.S. Census Bureau report reveals the number of people living in poverty last year surged to 46.2 million—one in six Americans—the highest number since the Bureau began tracking such data more than 50 years ago. According to the report, blacks and Hispanics together accounted for 54 percent of the poor, with whites at 9.9 percent and Asians at 12.1 percent. Children under 18 suffered the highest poverty rate. Meanwhile, the number of Americans with employer-provided health insurance has also continued to decline, and the ranks of the uninsured now hovers just below the 50 million mark, the most in more than two decades. Analysts say the numbers would have been worse if not for government assistance programs, including extended unemployment compensation, stimulus spending, Obama’s health reforms, and Social Security. We speak with Heidi Shierholz, labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. [includes rush transcript]

  • Chomsky-economy

    Noam Chomsky on the U.S. Economic Crisis: Joblessness, Excessive Military Spending and Healthcare

    September 13, 2011 | Story

    President Obama sent his new jobs proposal to Congress on Monday with a plan to pay for the $447 billion package by raising taxes on the wealthy. Noam Chomsky says, "The healthcare system...the huge military spending, the very low taxes for the rich [and corporations]...those are fundamental problems that have to be dealt with if there’s going to be anything like successful economic and social development in the United States." As Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, calls Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," and Democrats buy into the narrative that the program is in crisis, Chomsky notes that "to worry about a possible problem 30 years from now, which can incidentally be fixed with a little bit of tampering here and there, as was done in 1983, to worry about that just makes absolutely no sense, unless you’re trying to destroy the program." [includes rush transcript]

  • 911-health

    As Study Links 9/11 Debris to Cancer, Details Emerge on How Officials Downplayed Ground Zero Dangers

    September 09, 2011 | Story

    An often-forgotten group victims in the September 11th narrative are the many rescue workers who fell sick after being exposed to contaminants at Ground Zero. According to a new article by ProPublica, recently uncovered documents reveal that federal officials in Washington and New York went further than was previously known to downplay concerns about health risks, and misrepresented or concealed information that might have protected thousands of people from the contaminated air at Ground Zero. Meanwhile, a new study has provided potentially groundbreaking evidence of a link between exposure to toxic debris at Ground Zero and the development of cancer. The medical journal, The Lancet, reports male firefighters exposed to dust and smoke at Ground Zero have a 19 higher percent risk of developing cancer than colleagues who were not exposed. The finding comes just one month after the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health ruled there’s insufficient evidence to draw a link between the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center after 9/11 and cancer. Firefighters and rescue workers have been unable to receive payments for cancer treatments because cancer is not covered under legislation providing care for 9/11 responders. We speak with Anthony DePalma, author of "City of Dust: Illness, Arrogance, and 9/11." His latest article for ProPublica is called "New Docs Detail How Feds Downplayed Ground Zero Health Risks." We’re also joined by Joel Kupferman, executive director of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project. He was co-counsel for a group of residents and workers suing the EPA and ex-EPA Head Christine Todd Whitman. [includes rush transcript]