America was founded on the belief that every human is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Health care being affected by race is not only a violation of god given rights but also undermining the values the nation was founded upon.
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I was so sorry to hear about the death of Ms. Hannah-Jones uncle. It's a clear and tragic example of the injustice and inequity of the US health care system.
There was a factual error in the podcast. "And so to deal with this crisis, the federal government creates what ends up being the nation’s first federal health care program. It’s called the Freedmen’s Bureau Medical Division."
The Freedmen’s Bureau Medical Division (established 1865) was definitely not the first Federal health care program. A bill titled "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen" passed Congress in 1798 and established a hospital system for private citizens (Merchant seamen). The Navy later also got added to the system. The bill included the first payroll tax in US history to pay for the system.
Hospitals were built in ports, paid for by the Federal government and staffed by government employees, to provide health care to sick and disabled seamen.
None of this is to say that the Freedmen's Medical Division was not important and not sufficient by itself to provide health services to freed slaves. The US still has not made a commitment to ensure that all our citizens can access needed medical care.
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Im only part way through the post and looking forward to this episode, in particular, as someone who works in health policy. Just wanted to comment that I missed the date about the author’s uncle’s diagnosis and I had to go back to figure out why he couldn’t get insurance since he should have options in IL even after losing employer sponsored coverage. It looks like it happened in 2009/2010 — right as the ACA was being debated and passed. Obviously our health system still has lots of problems now, still has many disparities, and far too many people fall through the cracks, but at least in that state what happened to her uncle wouldn’t happen now. Hopefully over the next few years the same will be true in every other state as well. It may not feel like it, but much progress has been made on many fronts, and I’m personally very grateful for it even if we have a long way to go.
Wonderful show, by the way.
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where is the next episode? My son and I have been listening to this for the past few weeks, and today he asked me why we haven't listened to the next one yet. He is 11. Please make more episodes, if for no one else, than for other curious 11 year olds out there. They are our future, and they need this grounding. Thank you.
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@kate thats odd how do you not see it?
This storytelling is as beautiful as it is horrifying. It goes into extraordinary and damning detail, and never even touches on the toxic and enduring racism of The Flexner Report of 1910. Brilliant work. Thank you.
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I have a degree in health policy and I still learned so much from this podcast episode. This is an exceptional listen that clearly outlines how we got here (only high income nation without universal health insurance/health care), and the critical touchpoints where Black Americans and the Black American medical community intervened and fought for benefits that serve all Americans, and that are praised today by all, such as Medicare.
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This series is amazing and should be required in middle school curriculums. Thank you for your thoughtful and captivating work!
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So weird when doctors don't want a bigger consumer base as universal health insurance would provide.
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I love this series! It would be nice if you posted the transcriptions so people with disabilities and English learners could understand it better. Thank you guys.
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Another terrific episode. Again, so much I didn't know and the ending is tragic.
I find the ad for To Kill a Mockingbird very jarring. Too loud, to upbeat, too White-fictional. Can't you find another sponsor?
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@DaisyTwoSixteen
I thought the ad for To Kill a Mockingbird was actually embedded in the 1619 podcast as an ironic reminder of and rejoinder to a veridical history of slavery. As an ironic interruption of the 1619 narrative, the invocation of To Kill a Mockingbird cohered perfectly with post-1776 and post-Emancipation Proclamation white fictional narratives, especially from the South, that were precisely being dislocated by the NYT 1619 project. It took until the fourth podcast and numerous visual promotions in textual materials for me to realize that, indeed, this was no ironic rejoinder but an advert for a real Broadway production. No offense intended to Harper Lee, Aaron Sorkin, or the current Broadway play, but the story is so fictional, so incongruous, and so white that is seemed out of place in a revisioning of a fresher U.S. historiography that dislodges a suppositional 1776 with the originary and more concrete 1619.
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I kept envisioning the court scene, packed gallery only—segregated. Black people packed in the rafters trying to catch a glimpse. The everything below is a sea of white folk including the the all-white jury of the 1940s or whatever. Black and white Americans people don’t always have the same MEMORIES.
This AD scene makes me sad and uncomfortable each time it comes on.
Excellent podcast. Insightful helps to put inequities in historical perspective. The opening story is totally relatable my daughter with chronic kidney disease had similar experience accessing government funded health care.
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The depth and breath of inhumanity Black Americans have experienced in America continues ...
The capacity of Black Americans to persevere is truly profound....
Knowing these truths affirms and fuels my existence as a Black Man in America
Greg Thrasher
Director
Plane Ideas
Alternative Think Tank
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