Ep. 005: Covid-19 Pandemic Response Hurt by Health-care Industry Political Spending: Health-care Professionals Sound Alarm

Disheartened treating patients struggling to pay for their medicine and insurance premiums, hit by surprise payments they can’t afford, or encouraged to undergo unneeded procedures, health-care professionals see first-hand the consequences of unlimited political spending by industry giants.  The harmful influence of political spending on policies over decades, they believe, has weakened our health-care system and thereby worsened the impact on America of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

How did three health-care professionals from different parts of the country come together to submit testimony to Congress calling for a constitutional amendment to limit Big Money in politics? Last Fall they met at a national conference of non-partisan civic volunteers concerned about the dramatic rise in outside spending in our elections and on lobbying our legislators. They compared notes on their careers – Ellen Greene Bush, an Ohio clinical psychologist; Marie HenselderKimmel, a New Jersey OB-GYN doctor; and Robbi Duda, a Michigan registered nurse – and realized how similar their experiences were regarding the harmful effects of big pharmaceutical and insurance companies on the quality of care and well-being of their patients. Today, faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, these three ‘citizen lobbyists’ are taking action to limit political spending so that the American public can have the quality health-care system they deserve