By Rob Lorei Our guest on Radioactivity is Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive. He’s author of Deadly Spin and is a regular contributor for the Huffington Post and HealthInsurance.org. Today, on the 6th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act being signed into law , Potter talks about Obamacare, Big Money in politics and His new… Read more »
A coalition of citizens is asking Tampa General Hospital to get rid of its McDonald’s fast food franchise; but the hospital says it can’t because of a long-term contract. Elena Cuadros, with Corporate Accountability International, was part of a group of about ten people who held signs and delivered more than one thousand petitions Wednesday morning…. Read more »
During last weeks show we discussed Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Texas omnibus bill the Supreme Court is currently debating. Florida has followed in Texas’ footsteps and passed Senate Bill 1722, an anti-abortion bill that Governor Rick Scott is expected to sign. The bill which passed 25-15 in the Senate, would drastically change the state’s… Read more »
Coalition of public and private sponsors brought a cancer awareness event to Tampa. Last Saturday at Robert W. Sanders jr. Library, nearly 100 people came to listen to speakers, meet cancer survivors and participate in educational self-health screenings. Information and access are key ingredients needed to stave off cancer. Preventative care was a reoccurring theme… Read more »
Senator Bernie Sanders draws nearly ten thousand people to Tampa rally. Yesterday evening, in an expo hall on the Florida Fairgrounds, the democratic presidential candidate Sanders brought his message to Florida voters. Bernie Sanders speech hit on many different issues and on Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders Tampa visit was the last on his whistle stop… Read more »
What is the real cost of “Medicare for all?” Even with the Affordable Care Act, 33 million Americans are uninsured and another 15-55 million are underinsured. Yet by far, American’s pay the highest health costs per capita of any nation in the world. With the elections coming up our healthcare system is still a major issue…. Read more »
http://sound.wmnf.org/sound/wmnf_160212_110618_radioactivityF1_337.MP3 by Rob Lorei During last night’s Democratic debate, one of the argument that Hillary Clinton levied against Sen. Bernie Sanders is that his plan for single payer healthcare system is unfeasibly expensive; both she and the wall street journal quote a $18 trillion price tag for a single payer model. That number is based… Read more »
States that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act – like Florida – have done much worse at insuring people of working age than Medicaid expansion states. A study released Wednesday by Families USA found that the 31 states that have expanded Medicaid reduced their uninsured population by about twice as much as other… Read more »
Just after the Planned Parenthood decision in Texas, where a grand jury not only did not indict Planned Parenthood for selling fetal tissue, but instead chose to indict the Planned Parenthood accusers, the attack on women’s rights to control their bodies continued. On Tuesday the Florida House Criminal Justice Subcommittee voted 8-3 in favor of passing Bill HB865, with… Read more »
By Rob Lorei Today on radioactivity we listen to the latest Florida this week, a news and public affairs show moderated by Rob Lorei that airs every Friday night at 8:30 on local PBS station WEDU. This week’s panel offers political insights on the biggest political issues in Florida: Gov. Rick Scott call for a… Read more »
By Rob Lorei Asphalt roads that can’t be maintained. A gas station that no one used. A soybean farming project in a region that cannot grow the crop. A new interactive project by a team of journalists at Propublica poured over the books and found that the US government has wasted over 17 Billion dollars in… Read more »
Experts from the UN Working Group recently concluded their 10-day study of how U.S women’s rights compare to the international community and the results don’t look too good. Big surprise, right?! Visiting Alabama, Oregon and Texas, here’s what they found: In a global sense the U.S. is behind international standards in public and political representation,… Read more »
Florida has dropped a spot to 33rd worst in national health rankings. A United Health Foundation report published today highlights the things Florida is doing right and wrong and some things the state can do to improve the health of its residents. It’s not all gloomy news for Florida health. The state scores well in… Read more »
State Rep. Jamie Grant (R-Tampa) thinks that Medicaid expansion will be off the table during Florida’s Legislative session that begins in January. For one, Grant says this week’s gambling agreement “sucks a good bit of oxygen out of the time in Tallahassee” to consider other issues. But Grant thinks the legislature will still have time to… Read more »
By Rob Lorei Today our guest is Dr. Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of government at USF St.Petersburg, to talk about how the state crackdown on pill mills and prescription drug abuse has made it harder for actual pain sufferers to get the medication they need. At one point, Florida was ground zero for prescription drug… Read more »
By Rob Lorei With recreational pot legal in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington and legal medical marijuana initiatives being considered around the country, the cannabis industry is set to becoming a booming business, possibly bigger than the organic food industry, according to one study. We discuss legal issues regarding the commercialization of marijuana is one of… Read more »
By Rob Lorei Today we have the November edition of The Fairness Doctrine, a debate show moderated and produced by Jennifer Sullivan, host of TV show, also host of the TV show On the Table With the Green Party. This episode’s topic of the debate is medical marijuana. Advocates are pushing for a new amendment… Read more »
Mayor Bob Buckhorn has his eyes on the prize and wants to get the uninsured in Tampa signed up for health care. Today President Obama and the Whitehouse launched the Healthy Communities Challenge. It tasks 20 US cities, including Tampa, to boost enrollment in the Affordable Care Act. Mayor Buckhorn already has a plan ready… Read more »
By Rob Lorei A video depicting a South Carolina school resource officer slamming a female student to the ground last week has triggered a national conversation on how educators should handled troubled students. Joining in the conversation with us today are Joe Rutherford and Roaya Tyson from Grace Point, a mental health clinic in Tampa… Read more »
By Rob Lorei This week, the Tampa Bay Times and the Sarasota Herald Tribune released the first part of an investigative series into the state of Florida’s mental health hospitals titled “Insane. Invisible. In Danger.”, the result of a year-long collaborative effort between the two newspapers. The project reveals have millions of dollars in budgets… Read more »
After a mass shooting it’s common for analysts to examine the mental health of the suspect. But at a forum Friday hosted by the University of South Florida in Tampa, a behavioral sciences researcher downplayed the connection between gun violence and people with serious mental illnesses. Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences… Read more »
Public policies announced by some of our presidential candidates were the topic of discussion on the program. WMNF spoke with David Dayen about breaking down the recent Wall Street Journal report that Bernie Sanders spending plans if elected president would amount to over $18 trillion. In a recent piece in The Intercept,Dayen tears apart that… Read more »
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman has returned from what he called a “very worthwhile trip” to Cuba. During a press conference at City Hall Tuesday afternoon, Kriseman said he was blown away by the beauty and the arts in Havana. The St. Petersburg delegation met for two hours with the deputy director for American affairs… Read more »
Florida will have more federal money to reimburse hospitals for care they provide uninsured patients. Politico Florida reports The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has given the state a 60-day extension to spend about $166 million from what’s called the Low-Income Pool (LIP). But that’s going away because the Affordable Care Act instead encourages… Read more »
Today is the 50th anniversary of the medicare and medicaid programs that was passed by President Lyndon Johnson. It transformed health care coverage since its inception in 1965, at time when over half of senior citizens were not insured. We talk about the anniversary with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a practicing physician and public health professor at… Read more »
