March 27, 2025

20 Years of Healthcare NOW!

1 hour 2 minutes

Listeners, what were you doing in 2004? Perhaps you were strolling down the street in low rise jeans, Uggs, and a Livestrong bracelet listening to Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” Or maybe you were sitting in a movie theater ready to have your mind blown by Ashton Kutcher’s tour de force performance in The Butterfly Effect. Well, the folks joining us on this week’s episode of our podcast may have missed some of that stuff because they were too busy building a movement for healthcare justice! 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of Healthcare NOW, the national organization fighting for Medicare for All that brings you your favorite podcast! If you’re a regular listener, you probably know that I was the Executive Director of Healthcare NOW for 11 years, and Gillian is the current Executive Director, but today we’re taking it back to 2004 and talking with some of the OGs who started it all!

https://www.youtube.com/live/jSkKQLVHkTU?si=JS1PCFWWgEU6SEP2

This episode features some of our very favorite people — the leaders in the healthcare justice movement who have made Healthcare NOW what it is today (the creator of your favorite podcast content!):

Mark Dudzic is a longtime union organizer and activist. He served as national organizer of the Labor Party from 2003 to 2007 and was a cofounder of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer in 2009. He has been a member of the Healthcare Now board since its founding in 2004.

Lindy Hern is the Chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo and President of the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology. She has been on the Healthcare NOW board since 2009 and is the author of “Single Payer Healthcare Reform: Grassroots Mobilization and the Turn Against Establishment Politics in the Medicare for All Movement.”

Donna Smith is an advocate for single payer, improved and expanded Medicare for all. Her journalism career included work as a stringer for NEWSWEEK magazine, editing and reporting for the Black Hills Pioneer in South Dakota, as well as appearances on CNN and Bill Moyers Journal, and as one of the subjects in Michael Moore’s 2007 film, SiCKO. She worked for National Nurses United and traveled more than 250,000 miles advocating for health justice. She now serves as the National Advisory Board chair for Progressive Democrats of America.

Walter Tsou is a Board Advisor to Physicians for a National Health Program and on the Board of HCN. He has been a long time single payer healthcare activist. Walter is a former Health Commissioner of Philadelphia and Past President of the American Public Health Association.

Cindy Young has been a healthcare activist for over 40 years. She has served on the Health Care Now board since 2012. In her retirement, she serves as a Vice President for the California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA), whose principle goal is to establish a single payer system in California.

If this episode doesn’t give you your fill of Healthcare NOW history, you can always check out Lindy’s book or this sweet tribute to our founder Marilyn Clement.

And of course, if you want to keep up the good work of all these amazing folks, you can make a donation to support our work!

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By Benjamin Day and Gillian Mason - Healthcare-NOW

4.6