Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Bloomington Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview  Tracey Hutchings-Goetz, the Monroe County organizer for Hoosier Action, talking about Medicaid changes in Indiana and how dangerous these changes will be.  We last interviewed Tracey one year ago, in September 2025

Selections from the podcast:

Karen:  So will you please talk about what Hoosiers have experienced with their healthcare needs since the last time we talked a year ago?

Tracey: Since last year, we’ve really seen an acceleration of coverage loss that began when Governor Braun took office and appointed Mitch Roob to FSSA secretary. Many of the provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which we spoke about last time I was here have yet to go into effect. The most significant ones aren’t really going to hit until January of twenty twenty-seven. But what we have seen is increased administrative hostility resulting in the fastest and most significant coverage loss in the country for Medicaid members in the State of Indiana. The rate of coverage loss which is 20% or so, that is unparalleled when compared to other states. And it includes not just Healthy Indiana Plan members, but also those are folks on the ACA expansion, HIP 2. We’re also seeing a significant loss, 22%,  for,kids, that’s Hoosier Healthwise, as well as a 25% coverage loss for traditional Medicaid members who are amongst the poorest and the sickest folks on the program. Really no one is safe under this current state administration. We’re deeply concerned about an acceleration happening once we get into January.

Karen: Remind us of how HIP is actually covered. How is it financially viable?

Tracey:  One of the important things to understand is that when an individual loses Medicaid coverage, HIP coverage for instance; it is not just a harm which they alone experience. It actually means that there is a reduction of money into our healthcare system and industry. HIP is a really good example of this because it is a program which is 90% funded by the federal government. For every $9 the feds spend, Indiana only has to put in $1. It’s an incredible investment. It brings billions of dollars into our state which then gets spent in the state on healthcare services, money that keeps our hospitals running, our doctors employed, our nurses employed, hospital custodians paid, all of that money. And so when you kick off HIP members, not only are they at risk of catastrophic medical debt or serious illness because they’re delaying care, all of which also have a significant economic impact, but we’re also looking at a significant reduction of capital in the states, and specifically in the healthcare sector. And so this is why cuts to HIP at the federal and state level threaten the economic viability of our healthcare sector in the state. When the One Big Beautiful Bill passed, just as an example, it was projected that there would be coverage loss of about 200,000 folks. We have already experienced coverage loss of nearly half a million. And with the 200,000 person coverage loss, it was predicted about 23,000 jobs, healthcare jobs, would end in Indiana. You know, we haven’t seen any of the numbers yet on this, but I suspect that we’re looking at significant economic fallout, not just for the hospitals, but also for individual providers, and then people who are employed in any way in our healthcare system. That is gonna be really devastating. There’s no one who’s gonna be safe from the ripple effects of removing this much money from a system that needs it to stay functional.

Karen: And you had said that the worst of it has, will not kick in until January 2027. Can you talk about that please?

Tracey: Yeah. So, in January 2027, Indiana will begin implementing  provisions related to Medicaid work reporting requirements,  as well as additional changes, which will go into effect from SB1, which was passed, this year at the legislative session. Some of those bill provisions started in July, but a lot of them were tied to the One Big Beautiful Bill. There’s a bunch of different things that are dangerous and concerning about both of those pieces of legislation. For instance, under SB1, which passed earlier this year, there is a ban on hardship exemptions. So if you, say, are hospitalized in a coma and you’re a HIP member, if you fail to provide documentation while you’re in a coma at the hospital, you will get kicked off of HIP for failing to report your work hours. That’s gonna go into effect and exacerbate what is already anticipated to be significant coverage loss caused by the confusing and burdensome new work-reporting requirements, and I always call them work-reporting requirements because they are not actually about working or helping people get jobs or ensuring that people keep jobs. What they are about is creating more paperwork to report, and that is where the problem comes in because the majority of HIPP members, about 75- 80%, already work or otherwise meet, the requirements of the work-reporting program, meaning they either have young kids or they’re caregivers, or they’re volunteering a significant amount of their time. The problem is not, “Are people qualified for the program?” Right? This has been exactly the problem this whole time over the last year and a half. The problem is not that Hoosiers aren’t poor enough, or aren’t sick enough to meet Medicaid. It all comes down to this reporting paperwork issue, and that is where we see errors happening all the time,  paperwork arriving late, things being confusing, not knowing how to upload or the portal breaking. And so that’s what’s gonna go into effect in January, are the work reporting requirements which are three months retroactive for HIP members,  which is a pretty significant percentage of our Medicaid population, and our projection is that about 51%, at least, of that population will be kicked off next year because of how confusing these new requirements are gonna be, and that was based on a state’s analysis of the cost-sharing program on HIP which was known as POWER Accounts, which had a similar impact to the program and was ultimately ruled by a federal judge to be against the spirit of Medicaid because all it really did was kick people off…

We’re on track if we continue at our current rate to reach one million dis-enrolled people come January. That would put us at an uninsured rate of 1 in 7 people in the state for folks under 65. That threatens every single one of us because we all share the same healthcare system…

Even if you think you don’t know a Medicaid member or you’ve never known a Medicaid member, this is going to start impacting your life very soon if not already. Hospital emergency room delays, overcrowding, trouble getting appointments, right? Trouble affording care as prices increase. All of this is what’s coming unless we start working together and creating a pretty loud NO  towards our governor and towards our General Assembly. This state of affairs is not acceptable and is extraordinarily dangerous for every single one of us. Hoosier Action over the next few months is gonna be really focused on talking to as many people as we can about this care crisis. We’ll be launching a petition really soon that is focused on stopping the cuts and healing our healthcare system by building something new and better together. We are going to be organizing a town hall on October 5th in House District 62, which includes, Bloomington, Monroe County, Brown County, and a little bit of Jackson County, which will be about healthcare as well as other issues impacting folks. In November we’re planning on heading up to the State House with the disability rights community, and be there on Organization Day, because we know that our disabled brothers and sisters, face increasing challenges under this system, and are bearing the brunt of a lot of these cuts already to our care. That’s gonna be on November 17th, which is Organization Day. The start of legislative session. And then on January 13th we will be at the General Assembly  for a day of action. I hope that all of y’all will join us there, for what we’re tentatively calling A Million Medicaid March because that is when we expect to start to see coverage loss, hit a million.

Listen to the entire podcast above.

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Bloomington Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview Caeden Windschitl, 2nd year medical student at the U of Minneapolis Twin Cities campus.  He is president of Students for a National Health Program, SNaHP, Twin Cities chapter, and is a board member of Physicians for a National Health Program, PNHP. When the first year medical students found that United Healthcare was teaching a class as part of the medical school curriculum, and it was the only class they were going to receive in school about the US healthcare system, the students organized in protest, and the class was withdrawn.

Selections from the podcast:

Caeden – I came into medical school, and within three weeks everyone got an email sent to their inbox about this new great class that the University medical school was going be offering. And right front and center was that UnitedHealth Group would be teaching it. UnitedHealth Group, who is now the fourth-largest company in the world by revenue, UnitedHealth Group who we had heard so much about in recent years, UnitedHealth Group who is 30 minutes away from the University of Minnesota campus. This class was to be taught on the UnitedHealth Group campus to University of Minnesota medical students about health insurance-  specifically value-based healthcare. Sounds absurd. To rub salt in the wound UnitedHealth Group was donating some unknown amount of money to the University of Minnesota Healthcare Foundation to put on this course. Some professors from the University of Minnesota published a paper encouraging the design of coursework partnered with health insurance companies for other medical students to implement themselves. In addition to this, this is the only course that the University of Minnesota Medical School provides concerning health insurance. For any students that want to learn about health insurance or health systems, this is their course. From the start everyone in my year was like, ‘Wow what even is this?’ We already knew that our voices would not be heard as individuals. This course had already had a bit of a trial run. And those students had already voiced their concerns with the course. And with this course as well the CEO of UnitedHealth Group at the time even came down and took three hours out of his day to talk to the students. At the time, in the trial run there were 10 students enrolled in it. We knew that this course was both important to UnitedHealth Group, as well as something from the article that was published by the University of Minnesota Medical School, something that the U wanted to continue pursuing. We knew that it was more than just this course that was at stake here. From the start this sort of kicked off our Students for a National Health Program chapter ramping up on campus. The chapter had been simmering down for the last few years so we used this as an opportunity to stage a bit of a protest using the group on campus. So we took to a petition. We identified many that would not be willing to sign on publicly in blatant disagreement with UnitedHealth which made it very difficult at the start. So a lot of our work was very grassroots. Me and a select group of medical students instead took to using one-on-one calls talking to individual students, getting people to sign on before we blasted it out to the entirety of the campus. At the end of it all over 90% of first-year medical students signed on to the petition to remove UnitedHealth Group from our coursework. Over 70% of second-year medical students, we had over 30 University of Minnesota medical professors sign on to our petition as well as almost 200 currently practicing physicians… The class was withdrawn and we won…

Karen –  Caeden, what is your prescription for healthcare?

Caeden –  I love this question. I think there’s so much to talk about!   Most patients in the United States see a physician somewhere between two to three times a year. If you look at other countries that have a national healthcare service, they are visiting a physician between five to seven times on average per year. That almost double. I think the patient-physician relationship is just so much more in that sort of system.  Almost it’s grounded in the health outcomes of the patient instead of this relationship with money… People are dismayed seeing their co-pay, their deductible, seeing that they can’t get certain medications. Doctors are dismayed, not just at the paperwork, but at the fact that often we do not get to decide what our patient receives. Instead it is someone that has not gone through schooling someone behind a desk at a health insurance company deciding that no, they cannot receive the healthcare that both me and the patient decided was necessary for them. More than anything else, I believe that a national healthcare system is the solution to bringing back patient-centered care and to bring back the patient-physician relationship. 

American Economic Liberties Group – UnitedHealth Group Abuse Tracker

Students for a National Health Program

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview Gloria Bent from Connecticut where she went through a nightmare of care denial from United Healthcare’s Medicare Advantage coverage while trying to save her husband’s life. This happened after they were forced out of their traditional Medicare program and into Medicare Advantage coverage by their retirement program. After her husband’s death she became an activist, testified before Congress, and co-founded Connecticut State Employees for Medicare Choice

From the podcast:

Karen – “You’ve been testifying before Congress, working at the Connecticut State Legislature and with your senator, Richard Blumenthal. What has that been like for you?”

Gloria- “I really appreciated working with Senator Blumenthal, and every time we spoke somewhere, it was just another affirmation of the level at which this is prevalent. We would have people telling us, ‘Yes, this has happened to us,’ or, ‘I know people that it’s happened to.’ There was some healing for me in the ability to work with his office and to speak out.”

Karen – “Gloria Bent, what is your prescription for healthcare?”

Gloria – “Ah. Um, I think profit needs to come out of it. I came to realize that the use of artificial intelligence, at least in my husband’s case, it was greed that was the enemy in this, not necessarily the use of the algorithms.  I’m a big supporter of Physicians for a National Health Program. I think ultimately Medicare for All or whatever we come up with, a single payer, is the only way out of this. Because anytime you have Wall Street attacking insurance companies because they’re not making enough money for their shareholders, the patient suffers. I was surprised to learn that a Medicare Advantage plan gets a certain amount of money for however many they insure, and what they don’t spend is their’s. Having learned that, I found myself saying, ‘Is it any wonder that the level of denial is at the level that it is?’ Because that’s how they make money. I’ve read articles about UnitedHealthcare being pressured by the powers that be on Wall Street because they were spending too much on their patients and not bringing home enough reward for their shareholders.

Karen – “Gloria, thank you for talking with us today, and thank you for your dedication and your advocacy, your fierce advocacy. I’s been a pleasure to connect with you and talk about what you are doing in Connecticut to stand up and speak out.

Gloria – “Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for doing what you’re doing in Indiana.  I think these stories have to keep being told, so that people are aware.

Karen – “For our listeners, the deeper we go into Medicare Advantage, and we’ve done other interviews as well, and because PNHP did a deep dive into Medicare Advantage plans, the darker it gets. For our listeners who want to follow up on this conversation, a piece by Reed Abelson in The New York Times on June 11th  [Private Medicare Plans Often Deny Access to Rehab Care, Analysis Shows] looks at the denials for care in Medicare Advantage plans that are paid a fixed amount to care for patients so they have a financial incentive to spend less on care. And to achieve savings, these plans often deny people expensive specialized inpatient care. Overall, about one in five patients appeal to insurers’ denials, and nearly all were reversed, according to the investigators’ review of denials by 19 companies in June 2024. UnitedHealth, your company, which received the highest number of requests for appeal, reversed 99.7% of its rejections according to the inspector general’s inquiry. The high percentage of denials that were overturned suggest that some people’s care, very personal for you, was inappropriately – delayed because of the insurer’s decision, and others may not have gotten the care they deserved because they never appealed.”

Another recent story from The Washington Post 6/29/26 –  After her insurer denied coverage of medication, she ended up in the ER – After switching Medicare Advantage plans, a woman with a weakened immune system got tangled in the preapproval process, which the insurance industry has vowed to improve.

Please Note: Anyone reading or listening to this who is currently covered by a Medicare Advantage plan rather than Traditional Medicare, please do not feel like you should immediately drop your Advantage plan. Your plan may be what is best for you as an individual. What we are saying is that Medicare Advantage as a policy is bad policy, but in your individual situation it may make good sense. Many people with Medicare Advantage plans get good care and are happy with their coverage.

We need to change the policy. You don’t necessarily need to change your coverage, but you should understand that you may face denials and delays that would not come up with traditional Medicare.

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview Karen Palmer, adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in BritishColumbia, Canada, an independent health policy analyst, health systems researcher, and consultant.  She also serves as a board advisor to Physicians for a National Health Program, PNHP, here in the US. 

From the podcast:

Karen Green Stone:  Karen, we recently heard you talk about the Canadian healthcare program, which is called Medicare, specifically physician recruitment to Canada, and physicians in the US choosing to move to Canada to work in the Canadian Medicare system. You said that the goal of the health ministry is to find a place for every qualified healthcare practitioner who wants to work in BC. Other provinces are doing the same. Will you please talk about what is happening with US physicians and other medical professionals moving to BC and Canada?

Karen Palmer:  Yes, I will. So that is a real change from the past when it was so difficult for healthcare providers to move here from the States. Like many countries in the world, and for many reasons, Canada is facing healthcare staffing shortages, especially in family medicine and nursing and rural and remote care. In response several provinces, especially British Columbia, have launched, pretty aggressive recruitment campaigns targeting healthcare workers from the States. What I can talk about a little bit is, how many healthcare providers from the States have applied, how many have actually been hired, and why, some say that they are choosing Canada at this particular time in history. I’ll just tell you a little bit about what BC’s Minister of Health said in June of 2025, and I’ll quote her. She said that, “With the chaos and uncertainty happening in the US, we are seizing the opportunity to attract the talent we need to join and strengthen our public universal healthcare system in British Columbia.” These campaigns are attracting significant interest because Canada’s offering faster licensing pathways than in the past, a publicly funded healthcare practice for physicians, of course, and a relatively stable social and political environment. This has been supported by the Canadian Medical Association, and I’ll read you a quote from what they said, “Reducing barriers for all internationally trained physicians qualified to practice in Canada will help close critical gaps in the health workforce and make it easier in the short term for anxious US-based healthcare workers to live where quality of care meets quality of life”…

 As of March 2026, since launching its targeted US recruitment campaign in March 2025, the year before, BC has received nearly 2,800 applications from US health professionals, so nearly 3,000. Over 3,000 have expressed interest through various webinars and recruitment efforts and events. The numbers from British Columbia’s Ministry of Health show that between March 2025 and January 2026  more than 400 health professionals from the US had accepted jobs in British Columbia including 89 doctors, 42 nurse practitioners, 216 nurses, and 23 allied health professionals…

 A major reason healthcare professionals  are leaving is dissatisfaction with the US healthcare system. I think many US healthcare professionals, we all know this, say that they are worn out by insurance paperwork and corporate healthcare systems and staffing shortages and workplace stress. I mean, those first two, the insurance paperwork, we don’t have a multi-payer system in Canada. We have a single-payer system for medically necessary hospital and physician services, so there’s one payer in each province and territory. And we don’t have these corporate structures to the extent that you have in the States. Some have specifically mentioned that they want to practice in a universal publicly funded system instead of dealing with so many insurance companies. Another reason is political and social concerns in the United States. Some have cited political polarization, reproductive rights issues, gun violence…

Listen to the entire show above.

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview  Ethan Fairbanks, a fourth-year medical student at Indiana University School of Medicine, soon to be Dr. Ethan Fairbanks as of May 15th this year when he graduates. He will be leaving Bloomington for Grand Rapids, Michigan for his residency program at Michigan State University in internal medicine. Ethan is the current president of Students for a National Health Program in Indiana, SNaHP, the student organization of Physicians for a National Health Program, PNHP.

From the podcast: “I started growing up on the east side of Indianapolis, far east side, past 465. My family eventually, we lost our house in the financial crisis, wrongful foreclosure. We kept moving further and further east as time went on, and eventually landed in New Palestine. Money’s quite tight, when you’re losing your house or when you’re having to move, and parents working sales jobs, things like that, you come to notice when something is not present that you need, such as healthcare, such as maybe the toy you want when you’re really young. Eventually, I decided medicine was the place that I could do the most good. During medical school, it’s a very taxing, very time-consuming thing to be a part of. Frankly, during the first two years, most of my time was just spent trying to get by. It came to a head going into my third year, into my clinical year.  I think this would be back in 2024, I found myself thinking things are only getting worse in healthcare, feeling as though I’m going to be graduating into, frankly, a dark age of American healthcare…”

Listen to the full podcast above.

Watch Ethan on WTHR 2/23/26: Senate Bill 1 targets welfare fraud in Indiana, but some worry it will hurt those most in need

Join Students for a National Health Program!

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview Lori Clark, the National Organizer with Physicians for a National Health Program, and Helen Bassett,  a fourth year medical student from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and founder of the Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP) chapter at her medical school. We discuss the exciting organizing that SNaHP students are doing.

Helen Bassett, medical student.                                          Lori Clark, PNHP National Organzier

From the podcast:  Karen – “What is your prescription for healthcare?”                                                             Helen – “I think right now my prescription for healthcare is just a little more compassion. I think reminding ourselves that healthcare fundamentally is connection with fellow human beings and just wanting the best for everyone. Really brings us back, I think.  There’s a lot of talk about burnout and the healthcare system just completely crumbling at the seams. And, I think when we reconnect with our compassion, it really helps protect us from what we’re noticing.

“You know, the reason why I got involved in this fight as a high schooler, I saw one of my favorite teachers get diagnosed with cancer. Students and the whole school fundraised $70,000 for her cancer treatment. Obviously I’m very happy that we were able to do that, and it’s a great accomplishment, but I remember thinking the entire time just how sad it was. Not only that she’s fighting cancer, but that she had to fundraise her own money to just be able to pay for the treatment that she needed to save her own life. And so for me, fundamentally, I just really care about other people. I think if you need to go see a doctor to get cared for something, then you should be able to, regardless of your ability to pay.

“And that fundamentally just comes down to compassion. So that’s what I want to leave us with today.”

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month, March 2026, due to spring break, we are going to re-broadcast our show originally aired in July 2026 with Dr Peter Hotez. As the US measles epidemic worsens and the anti-science of RJK Jr becomes louder, we need to listen again to Dr Hotez. He is a hero and a voice of truth.

This month we interview Dr. Peter Hotez,  Professor and Dean of Baylor College of Medicine’s National School of Tropical Medicine in Houston, Texas. He’s a pediatrician and public health advocate and on the forefront of vaccine development. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for his “work to develop and distribute a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine to people of the world without patent limitation.” His books include Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad and, The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning.

From the podcast:

Karen Green Stone – “Dr. Hotez, thank you for taking time away from your very important work to talk with us today. We’re so glad that we met you and when we asked you to talk with us for the interview, we thought it was a long shot, but you responded right away. It was incredible, and we appreciate your sincere kindness and willingness to talk with us and to our listeners about your academic research work and your healthcare advocacy work.”

Peter Hotez –  “I’ll just say one thing. It’s an opportunity for me. Because I don’t often get to speak to people in our middle part of the country.  I mean, I can go on CNN and MSNBC until I’m blue in the face or at PBS NewsHour, and I do it, and I love it, and it makes an impact, but it also doesn’t reach a whole segment of the US population.

So, a local radio station in Indiana asking me to talk, I’m all in! I mean, great, to me, that’s an opportunity.”

His upcoming book is Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World

Here is a longer podcast going into greater depth on many of the issues we discussed with him.

Here is the PLOS article for students going into scientific research careers mentioned in the show.

________________________________

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview attorney Sheldon Toubman, the litigation attorney with Disabilities Rights, Connecticut, which serves individuals with a broad range of disabilities throughout the state of Connecticut.

Sheldon focuses on healthcare and protecting civil rights, including rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sheldon has been an attorney for 43 years. He practices in Hartford, Connecticut.

When he was an attorney with the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, Sheldon co-led a coalition that successfully changed the Medicaid delivery system from being run by profit driven insurance companies to a state run system accountable to taxpayers saving the state of Connecticut, literally billions of dollars since the conversion in 2012.

From the podcast: “Karen Green Stone –  In February of 2025 while testifying before a Senate hearing in Connecticut, you said that in 2011 Governor Daniel Malloy made a bold decision to move away from being dependent on risk-based insurance companies called Managed Care organizations or MCOs [In Indiana, these are usually referred to as MCEs, Managed Care Entities] to run the state’s Medicaid program, even though most other states then contracted with them and still do today. And I’ll add here that Indiana continues to contract with Big Insurance. The decision was really not that hard because Medicaid run through insurance companies was a source of major access problems for Medicaid enrollees statewide and major headaches for their providers who spent huge amounts of time trying to get approvals of care they prescribed, and even though it was approved, actually getting paid. And I’ll add here that Indiana’s solution is to reduce the size of Medicaid rather than expand services. So Sheldon, we’ve always thought of Connecticut as the Insurance State, and we were surprised to hear that you achieved the conversion to a state based finance system for Medicaid. Will you please tell us about the history of the movement to change the way Connecticut finances its Medicaid program?

Sheldon Toubman – “It’s true that most people would say that Hartford is the insurance capital of the country. Aetna is headquartered there and Aetna was at the time, one of the three MCOs, and another for-profit in the system was UnitedHealthcare, which of course is the largest insurance company, and has a major presence in Connecticut as well. So it was formidable to take on the industry. The campaign was literally over 10 years, really 12 years.

“It was an education campaign. There were a lot of other pieces to it, but mostly it was an education campaign to just educate the legislators, the state agency people, and the public at large about what was lost by having turned the keys to the program over to these capitated insurance companies, capitated for-profit insurance companies, and capitation simply means that there is a per-member per-month payment that goes to the insurance company, and so every dollar paid to a healthcare provider comes out of the insurance company’s pocket. It was a direct financial incentive to deny care. It was an education campaign about what that really means. And what it meant is that access was significantly restricted to healthcare for low income people who have no other option. The two main ways that access was restricted was through, a limited provider network and extensive, burdensome prior authorization…”

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview Dr Belinda McIntosh, a psychiatrist in Atlanta, Georgia, and board member of Physicians for a National Health Program. She was one of the chief authors of “No Real Choices: How Medicare Advantage Fails Seniors of Color”,  an important report released in October, 2025. Medicare Advantage plans claim that they help expand healthcare to underserved populations, but this report challenges that claim.

Belinda McIntosh MD

From the podcast:

Karen Green Stone – “In this study of Medicare Advantage plans, one of your key findings is that there are systematic disparities that Black, Hispanic, and Asian seniors are financially trapped in subpar plans run by the insurance giants like United Healthcare, Anthem, Humana. The communities of color are disproportionately enrolled in the lowest quality Medicare Advantage plans, and that many seniors from under-resourced communities cannot afford Medigap Insurance to supplement traditional Medicare plans or Part D prescription drug coverage plans, and are therefore stuck with Medicare Advantage plans that limit access to specialists and high performing hospitals. Will you please explain why people would choose Medicare Advantage plans over traditional Medicare and what these systematic disparities are and why patients are financially trapped?”

Dr McIntosh: “Let’s start with the question of why do people choose these plans?The crux of what this report revealed is this is a false choice. It isn’t true that people in minority groups or people of lower income are choosing these lower quality Medicare Advantage plans. It’s simply that they don’t have the income or wealth to be able to support getting traditional Medicare plus a Medigap plan.

“If you get traditional Medicare without Medigap, your financial exposure is really excessive and it can mean  you have no out-of-pocket maximum, whereas people who have more money and more choice can choose Medicare with Medigap, people of lower income simply can’t. The Medicare Advantage plans will often woo people with lower premiums. They also provide supplemental benefits which are not available in traditional Medicare. One of our main problems with traditional Medicare is that people need dental benefits and hearing benefits and vision benefits, and so that’s the other reason they’ll choose a Medicare Advantage plan, again, with lower premiums, and with these out of pocket maximums. The trouble is that the plans are really not as good as they’re marketed to be. When people actually get sick, they find that their coverage is really lacking. The other reason that people end up in these plans as opposed to choosing them is that these lower quality Medicare Advantage plans are not equally distributed geographically.

“People in Whiter wealthier areas get incentives because they have  lower than average traditional Medicare spending because they’re healthier communities, and CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] gives them a bonus for having lower than average traditional Medicare spending, which they can then pass on to their their customers in the way of lower premiums and additional benefits. Those bonuses are not available in areas that have higher than average traditional Medicare spending, which means less wealthy and communities of color. Because of that, there is an inequitable geographical distribution of Medicare Advantage plans by quality.”

To learn more, listen to the entire 17 minute interview.

Dr Belinda McIntosh video presenting No real choices for seniors of color in corporate health plans

14 health systems dropping Medicare Advantage plans | 2026 from Beckers Hospital Review 12/30/25

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.

Welcome to Prescription for Healthcare, a podcast collaboration between the WFHB Local News and Medicare for All Indiana, broadcasting the second Thursday of every month as part of the Local News at 5:15 PM.

This month we interview Rose Roach,  the National Coordinator for the Labor Campaign for Single Payer and Chair of Healthcare For All Minnesota.  She was previously on our show in February 2024 talking about unions and healthcare workers . Minnestota is currently working on strategies to de-privatize their state Medicaid program and get the profit making middlemen out, saving the state millions of dollars.

From the podcast:

“The way we’re thinking about this in Minnesota is that we’re working to remove the private insurers from our public health programs, and that means Medicaid. We have known for a long, long time that private insurers, be they for-profit or non-profit, have significantly higher administrative costs than a streamlined public health program does. We know that because Minnesota’s Medicaid program operated at a 4 to 5% administrative cost before they privatized.

“Private insurers  have administrative costs that range anywhere from 10 to 17%, so even on the low end at 10%, considering that Minnesota spends about $19 billion on our Medicaid  population, saving 10% is real money.  That could be reallocated to patient care. When we consider the harm that’s coming our way due to the Big Bill, we must be creative in how we work to mitigate that harm. And the most obvious way to do that is by de-privatizing our public health programs…

“I would say it this way – Let’s take healthcare away from insurance companies and put it back into the hands of healthcare professionals and patients. We need to get the money changers out of the temple. Let’s build our public health infrastructure so in the very near future, we’re all in one big pool, because that way we’re going to save money, control costs. and we can put the focus on care delivery to improve quality. So we  go back to having longer life expectancy, which has been going down in this country, while decreasing health disparities, particularly racial health disparities. It just makes economic sense. It’s humane.

“This system is fragmented, complex, and costly for a reason. They love to keep us fighting with each other. “I don’t get my healthcare through Medicaid. What do I care?” Right? I’m telling you, we’re all going to be affected by this because I’m  already hearing it from people at the bargaining table, people who are on Medicare Advantage, Medicare supplement, people who are buying on the market, it doesn’t matter. We’re all being impacted by what just happened in Washington DC. We know what needs to be done. We just need to have the political will and courage to get it done. And in the end we want Medicare for All.”

Follow Medicare for All Indiana on our Facebook page.

Follow Medicare for All Indiana @medicareforallindiana on Substack.  You can make comments and ask questions on Substack, as well as look at all our posts in one place.

Listen on Apple Podcasts Prescription for Healthcare-WFHB

Medicare for All Indiana is the Indiana Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program

“If Not Now, Tell Me When” by Carrie Newcomer is used with permission.