Vote! How All Elections Affect Your Healthcare

It’s almost Election Day! This week, co-hosts Erin Stein and Dr. Gillian Goddard are talking about voting, which might sound like a strange topic for a health podcast, but it affects your health care at every level in ways you haven’t even realized. Rejected insurance claims, cancer treatments and what your kid eats for lunch as school are all impacted by elected positions.

We start at the federal level with things both congress and the president have a hand in. We explore how Medicare affects everyone’s insurance; explain what the FDA, CDC, NIH, and Department of Health and Human Services each do; and why research funding matters. We also break down how Medicare differs from Medicaid, which is funded federally but run by the states. Then we go local: why your governor, state legislature, and insurance commissioner matter, why there isn’t one UnitedHealthcare but fifty, and how your county and town affect health departments and hospitals. Erin also shares a fun and slightly alarming fact about coroners versus medical examiners.