168. I'm Not Actually Supposed to Be Here. Guest, Matthew Cortland.

My guest is Matthew Cortland, a patient and healthcare rights advocate from Massachusetts. He received his graduate training in public health from Boston University and earned a JD from George Mason University School of Law. He is disabled and chronically ill, but a superbly effective lawyer, writer, and speaker as well as a well-known healthcare and disability rights activist. We recently staged a one day Symposium at the law school entitled Getting Real About Health Care for All. Matt was kind enough to join us and add his compelling thoughts about what healthcare for all should look like for those in the disability community and the dangers members of that community face during periods of transition in financing and delivery models. It was touch and go whether we would hear from him, not only did the airline and TSA conspire against him but he picked up a horrible cough and cold—something that most of us can throw off, but not someone on his drug regimen. As a result, his presentation was punctuated by coughs, sniffles, and much drinking of tea, but all covered up by Matt’s own self-deprecating humor. In case you don’t listen all the way through the acknowledgements at the end of the show please consider visiting Matt’s Patreon page

https://www.patreon.com/mattbc and sponsor his health. Towards the end of his talk Matt asked for a breather, help, “his reasonable accommodation” from the audience in the form of questions. I include two, the first from our friend Matthew Lawrence who is a health law professor at Penn State’s Dickinson Law school and then one from my colleague Ross Silverman who is on the faculty at the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University and also serves as a Professor of Public Health at our law school.