Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to OOKP Daily with me
Speaker 1: your Girl, Daniel Moody pre recording from the Long Island Bunker. Folks.
Speaker 1: As many of you know, my birthday comes up over
Speaker 1: the weekend and there is just well, let's just say,
Speaker 1: not a whole hell of a lot to celebrate. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be taking a couple of days for
Speaker 1: some rest and restoration. But I'm leaving you all with
Speaker 1: really fantastic pre recorded interviews that I have done to
Speaker 1: prepare for this time. So coming up is a really
Speaker 1: great conversation that I had with doctor Rob Davidson, who
Speaker 1: is an emergency room doctor in West Michigan. And doctor
Speaker 1: Davidson and I spoke before the election. We actually, I
Speaker 1: think spoke on election day, so we didn't know the results.
Speaker 1: But what he was laying out in this interview is
Speaker 1: what the world looked like, what America looked like, I
Speaker 1: should say, before the ACA, and what it can potentially
Speaker 1: and what it will look like POSTACA, because as we know,
Speaker 1: the Republicans one overwhelmingly every seed of power, and first
Speaker 1: up on their agenda is to deport tens of millions
Speaker 1: of people from this country. And then second up is
Speaker 1: to ensure that tens of millions of people inside of
Speaker 1: this country are sick and desperate. And so in this
Speaker 1: conversation we talk about what a post ACA world will bring.
Speaker 1: And you know, now we're here. Now we're here, so
Speaker 1: there is no like, well, what if and what if?
Speaker 1: It's not even a what if anymore. It is a
Speaker 1: when you know, how long do people have in order
Speaker 1: to get doctor's appointments and take care of themselves and
Speaker 1: their families. So coming up next my conversation with doctor
Speaker 1: Rob Davidson, Folks, I am excited to welcome to WOKF
Speaker 1: Daily doctor Rob Davidson, who is an er doctor in
Speaker 1: West Michigan and is the executive director of the Committee
Speaker 1: to Protect Healthcare, whose Twitter account went viral after creating
Speaker 1: a thread to respond to speaker Mike Johnson's unearthed video
Speaker 1: I guess we can call it of him claiming that
Speaker 1: he is going to do away with the ACA and
Speaker 1: that there will be no Obamacare. Doctor Davidson talk to
Speaker 1: us about why the ACA is so important and how
Speaker 1: it has transformed lives that you see on a regular basis.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Danielle, and this is this is really important to me.
Speaker 2: I've been in an emergency position for oh gosh, since
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight when I graduated medical school, so I've
Speaker 2: been at this a long time. I was probably about
Speaker 2: half of my career before the Affordable Care Act, about
Speaker 2: half of my career thus far after the Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 2: and primarily you know where I am, a pretty poor
Speaker 2: rural area, also worked in some urban areas in West Michigan,
Speaker 2: and the medical expansion piece of the Affordable Charact has
Speaker 2: been so incredible for the patients that I see. You
Speaker 2: know that we have people who, for so much of
Speaker 2: the time that I knew them, you know, working multiple jobs.
Speaker 2: None of the jobs provide a health insurance. You know,
Speaker 2: they didn't. They were were enough to quite qualify for Medicaid,
Speaker 2: but they couldn't afford to buy health insurance, particularly people
Speaker 2: with pre existing conditions, as insurance companies were able to
Speaker 2: deny people coverage or price it so far out of
Speaker 2: affordability that essentially they couldn't get coverage. And so many
Speaker 2: of those people I'd see over and over in the
Speaker 2: er with crazy high blood pressures, with blood sugars that
Speaker 2: were off the charts, who couldn't get a doctor who
Speaker 2: couldn't get insulin, who couldn't get blood pressure meds, and
Speaker 2: we'd sort of patch them up in the er. We'd
Speaker 2: get them maybe a month or two worth of their medication.
Speaker 2: We'd refer them to somebody, but again, because they didn't
Speaker 2: have insurance, they couldn't go see anybody. And it's certainly anecdotal,
Speaker 2: but it is so incredibly profound to see since the
Speaker 2: Affordable Career, how many more people have insured, how many
Speaker 2: more people can go see a doctor, how they are
Speaker 2: not dependent upon the er to get you know, reshills
Speaker 2: of their blood pressure meds or their insulin, or waiting
Speaker 2: until they're in a health crisis to be able to
Speaker 2: manage those chronic conditions that then result in heart attacks
Speaker 2: and strokes and kidney failure. So it's you know, having
Speaker 2: that option, expanded Medicaid and then having the subsidies that
Speaker 2: you know. Unfortunately, when President Trump was present the last time,
Speaker 2: he undermined and he cut and President Biden and Vice
Speaker 2: President Harris have now restored and strengthened and a placial
Speaker 2: Reduction Act the subsidies, so people who don't quite qualify
Speaker 2: for even expanded Medicaid can buy insurance, but do it
Speaker 2: more affordably. I think those pieces have been so important
Speaker 2: to my patients.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about like your reaction when you heard
Speaker 1: that audio by Speaker Johnson just so smugly basically saying
Speaker 1: that he's going to condemn tens of millions of American
Speaker 1: two emergency rooms as their primary care facility. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about what means you know, and saying that following
Speaker 1: a global health pandemic, that if we had had that
Speaker 1: global health pandemic, I would assume hit and we had
Speaker 1: had no ACA. Just walk us through some of the
Speaker 1: things that you would have seen.
Speaker 2: Right if we didn't have the ACA. Certainly, we had
Speaker 2: people who couldn't earn a living the way they were
Speaker 2: used to earning eleven, so their paychecks were down, and
Speaker 2: then they needed health care right they and their families
Speaker 2: needed to be able to go to the doctor or
Speaker 2: having formid occasionally go to the emergency department when they
Speaker 2: couldn't breathe when they had COVID. And that double whammy
Speaker 2: of a health crisis and an economic crisis put so
Speaker 2: many more people into that realm of requiring medicaid who
Speaker 2: frankly still would likely not have followed by for Medicaid,
Speaker 2: and we see in states where they don't have expanded Medicaid,
Speaker 2: those folks had less access to care. And the folks
Speaker 2: in states like Michigan Rye lived and about forty other
Speaker 2: states that do have expanded Medicaid, those folks had access
Speaker 2: to healthcare even though their paychecks were way down. When
Speaker 2: I heard Speaker Johnson say that, you know, to say
Speaker 2: I was surprise would be a lie. It's not surprising
Speaker 2: to hear leaders on the Republican side do this. I
Speaker 2: kind of thought the Republican Congress was kind of past this.
Speaker 2: They had said, you know, when President Trump had suggested
Speaker 2: he wanted to still do away with the APA, and
Speaker 2: he had concepts of a plan, Republicans in Congress came out,
Speaker 2: some of them at least, and said, well, this is
Speaker 2: not on the agenda, and so we were certainly I
Speaker 2: had been concerned about Trump winning and perhaps going after
Speaker 2: the AC again like he did the last time. You
Speaker 2: would then, but I thought, okay, well, maybe they've learned
Speaker 2: their lesson when they couldn't get it through in twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen and they had a backlash in twenty eighteen when
Speaker 2: people you know, voted overwhelmingly for Democrats with the ACA,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of as they're on their banners, as
Speaker 2: they were marching for these folks, and then you hear
Speaker 2: the now speaker and if they keep the ouse, future
Speaker 2: speakers say yes, that's definitely going to happen. That's on
Speaker 2: the it's sort of so crushing as a person who
Speaker 2: provides care as an advocate. I'm the executive director of
Speaker 2: an organization with you, twenty thousand doctors around the country
Speaker 2: fighting for this kind of stuff. We're doing a big
Speaker 2: play in Wisconsin, one of the few states with the
Speaker 2: Democratic governor who still has an expanded medicaid because of
Speaker 2: their jerrymandered Assembly and Senate. And now with new maps,
Speaker 2: we're hoping we're going to get the Assembly or get
Speaker 2: clothes and we think we can get expanded medicaid next
Speaker 2: year in the matter state. And so with all of
Speaker 2: that going on, and now you have a current speaker
Speaker 2: and someone who could be the next president saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: we still want to get rid of this thing. I
Speaker 2: can't think of anything more important than voting against that.
Speaker 2: If there wasn't enough out there to vote against, that's
Speaker 2: certainly critical.
Speaker 1: Paint the picture for us of what would happen if
Speaker 1: Medicaid is stripped away, if ACA is stripped away. Paint
Speaker 1: the picture for us of what it would look like
Speaker 1: inside this country, inside of hospitals, so that folks really understand.
Speaker 2: Well for where I practice, I practice in the emergency department, right,
Speaker 2: That's my entire career, and so that's where people end
Speaker 2: up when there's nowhere else to go. I thank God
Speaker 2: for MTALA, And you know, the state of Idaho was
Speaker 2: threatening m TALA when it came to abortion care, and
Speaker 2: luckily the administration stepped in and they got that at
Speaker 2: least kind of punted down the line. But I'm at
Speaker 2: that intersection where people come where they have nowhere else
Speaker 2: to go, and that undoubtedly will go up. I mean again,
Speaker 2: the days of people coming in with blood pressures of
Speaker 2: you know, too twenty over one twenty and having nowhere
Speaker 2: to go to get follow up and getting a month
Speaker 2: or two is worth of blood pressure met, those will
Speaker 2: be back and forth. They don't just want to get
Speaker 2: rid of the Affortable Care Act. They want to change Medicaid.
Speaker 2: They want to kind of scale people away from Medicaid.
Speaker 2: They want to require work for Medicaid instead of giving
Speaker 2: people health care so that then they are able to
Speaker 2: be healthy in work, which is what we've seen in
Speaker 2: our state. People get medicaid. Guess what, they are healthier,
Speaker 2: they can work, they're more productive, not the other way around.
Speaker 2: And so all of that's on the table. We're going
Speaker 2: to go back to the battle days. Listen, it's not
Speaker 2: perfect now. Health care still costs way too much, and
Speaker 2: our organization and others, and certainly the administration has done
Speaker 2: is a lot to try to put a dent in
Speaker 2: that with prescription drug costs, with subsidies for health insurance,
Speaker 2: and we have a long way to go. But boy,
Speaker 2: this backslide into the days before the ADA and scaling
Speaker 2: back medicaid would it would cost lots and in non
Speaker 2: expansion states. I believe between the time of Medicaid expansion
Speaker 2: and now there's been twenty plus thousand excess deaths that
Speaker 2: could have been averted had they expanded medicaid in these
Speaker 2: other states. I mean, it's real flesh and blood, and
Speaker 2: our patients will pay the price.
Speaker 1: You know. I actually want to go back to something
Speaker 1: that you said with regard to m Tala, which is
Speaker 1: the ability for patients to undergo abortion care in cases
Speaker 1: of emerging, and we have seen that brought back up
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, who then kicked it back down
Speaker 1: to the lower courts. And we are watching as women
Speaker 1: in places like Texas and Georgia are in the headlines
Speaker 1: for losing their lives because of untreated miscarriages that led
Speaker 1: to not only the death of the fetus but also
Speaker 1: their deaths. Can you talk to us a bit. I
Speaker 1: know that you're not an abortion doctor, but about what
Speaker 1: it has been like to be a doctor in America
Speaker 1: when the profession itself has been weaponized from covid on.
Speaker 1: I don't think that we have seen such a turn
Speaker 1: away from doctors, from science right and the politicization of that.
Speaker 1: So can you just speak to what it has been
Speaker 1: like to kind of be in the throes of that
Speaker 1: misinformation disinformation tornado that has placed targets on hospitals. I mean,
Speaker 1: hospitals have received bomb threats, right like. I mean, to
Speaker 1: think about that is outrageous. So what has that been
Speaker 1: like for you and for your colleagues?
Speaker 2: You know, I think there's a lot of bad and
Speaker 2: then also some good. There's a sliver of pope there.
Speaker 2: Certainly the bad is that people are being fed disinformation
Speaker 2: started a lot with COVID with them President Trump being
Speaker 2: kind of the chief purveyor of the misinformation and disinformation.
Speaker 2: And people will come in and accuse you of giving
Speaker 2: them COVID when you put a swab in their nose,
Speaker 2: accuse you of giving them the vaccine when you are
Speaker 2: giving them treatment. You know, simple thing like steroids, which
Speaker 2: we give to people for all sorts of things. That
Speaker 2: was one of the treatments for people get to get
Speaker 2: amitted with COVID accusing you of doing that and you
Speaker 2: having to defend that, right, you having to just say, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: I've been in your community at that point in my
Speaker 2: career for over a two decades about and I've been
Speaker 2: treating you and your family members for heart attacks and
Speaker 2: strokes and appendentitis and any number of emergencies, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you think I'm trying to do something
Speaker 2: to you against your will or something that may harm you.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's sort of a gut punch. I think
Speaker 2: there's been quite a bit of burnout in the field,
Speaker 2: both with physicians and with nurses and other allied health professionals.
Speaker 2: So that's been a real challenge. I think when it
Speaker 2: comes to abortion care, I mean m talents. The Emergency
Speaker 2: Medicine Treatment of Active Labor Act came around in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six, signed by a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, and
Speaker 2: that basically says, you can go to the er with
Speaker 2: an emergency. We will not ask you your insurance status
Speaker 2: or your ability of pay, and we will treat your emergency.
Speaker 2: And if that emergency includes bleeding to death because you
Speaker 2: are having a miscarriage or an incomplete miscarriage, even if
Speaker 2: it still has a faint heartbeat. In some of these states,
Speaker 2: like you said, Georgia, Texas, others, women have died because
Speaker 2: attorneys general and prosecutors have said we're going to prosecute
Speaker 2: doctors who provide basic emergency care. It's terribly disheartening, and
Speaker 2: it's driving doctors of all stripes, but certainly Obgyan's out
Speaker 2: of these states. These are becoming Obgyan deserts sor of
Speaker 2: hope that I see is that it has inspired many, many,
Speaker 2: many doctors to become active and to become activists and
Speaker 2: advocates on behalf of our patients. Because we are put
Speaker 2: in a privileged place in society. We work hard. You
Speaker 2: go to school. But we all do fairly well in
Speaker 2: our computerit use right, and we're in a position of
Speaker 2: power in a doctor patient relationship, and we can now
Speaker 2: use that to advocate on behalf of our patient who
Speaker 2: frankly are just become victims of a system, victims of dobbs,
Speaker 2: victims of the abortion bands in those cases without anything
Speaker 2: they can do about it, right, I guess they can move.
Speaker 2: That's an economic deficsion for some people. They can go
Speaker 2: to another state to get care. But many folks who
Speaker 2: are the poorest among us, they can't do that. They
Speaker 2: can't take off of work, they can't afford the cost,
Speaker 2: you know. And so we have seen a massive upswing
Speaker 2: and activism trump physicians on behalf of patients, certainly in
Speaker 2: our organization and other organizations. And we've seen those voices
Speaker 2: come out in Unison pushing back against the NCALA crisis
Speaker 2: that we what we had when the Supreme Court finally
Speaker 2: did punt it back. It's still not settled, right, but
Speaker 2: at least MTALA is still intact in Idaho and Texas.
Speaker 2: We've seen that activism come out in COVID where doctors
Speaker 2: giving testimonials on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And going
Speaker 2: on TV and telling the stories of what we're seeing
Speaker 2: so that folks can see what's going on out there.
Speaker 2: And again it's on behalf of our patients. It helps
Speaker 2: us for sure, because the practice of medicine's a lot
Speaker 2: better when you know you can actually help people. But
Speaker 2: it really is in service to those folks that come
Speaker 2: to us in the broken system in some ways and
Speaker 2: just are asking us to help them.
Speaker 1: What kills me is that you take an oath to
Speaker 1: do no harm as doctors and nurses and medical professionals,
Speaker 1: and you enter into the field because you want to
Speaker 1: provide care. And the way that politics has intervened in
Speaker 1: such a draconian way for you to now have to
Speaker 1: deny people care because of the legalities that you're facing
Speaker 1: or the criminalization yourself and persecution in that way is
Speaker 1: so unconscionable and terrible. And I wonder you know you
Speaker 1: speak about your colleagues, you know some becoming activists and
Speaker 1: advocating on behalf of patients. Do you ever speak to
Speaker 1: younger doctors doctors that are just entering the field, are
Speaker 1: in school right now, and if so, what are some
Speaker 1: of their concerns as they enter into such a fraud
Speaker 1: environment again with the sole purpose of wanting to help people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's It gives me hope because so
Speaker 2: many of these people, I mean, medicine has become more
Speaker 2: people of color, more women, trending younger right as people retire,
Speaker 2: people age out, you know, more employees, less quote, business
Speaker 2: owners that are positions, And as you look at the
Speaker 2: positions in Congress, the majority of them are Republican and
Speaker 2: they come from that business minded side of things. So
Speaker 2: it gives me hope because they are the most vocal
Speaker 2: and the most active. Now they have some constraints because
Speaker 2: they also have student loans, and they have employers that
Speaker 2: put sort of guardrails and what they can and fan do,
Speaker 2: but they are among the most vocal folks that I see,
Speaker 2: and it gives me hope for our practice of medicine,
Speaker 2: for our patients, and for this whole system in this
Speaker 2: country that we're going to move in the right direction.
Speaker 1: What do you want to tell people and say to
Speaker 1: people who oftentimes don't necessarily, unfortunately, we don't really think
Speaker 1: about our health care until something goes wrong. We don't
Speaker 1: come from a culture of prevention, We come from a
Speaker 1: culture of mitigation. That is generally driven by pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 1: and their desire to make money. And so I wonder
Speaker 1: what you say to people as again, healthcare will continually,
Speaker 1: I feel, beyond the ballot, whether we're in an on
Speaker 1: season for a presidential or an off season. So what
Speaker 1: advice do you offer to people as they try and
Speaker 1: continue to navigate are very fraught and imperfect system.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, from the political standpoint is that
Speaker 2: healthcare has been politicized, which can be bad. But the
Speaker 2: fact that we recognize it as a political issue, that
Speaker 2: there are very clear differences between the two parties. Even
Speaker 2: before trump Ism and Donald Trump, you know, there are
Speaker 2: very clear differences starting with Reagan in the eighties, allowing
Speaker 2: the privatization or more privatization of healthcare and things like
Speaker 2: high deductible plans where people get insurance that is kind
Speaker 2: of insurance if you have enough money to pay, you know,
Speaker 2: four five thousand dollars when you need something done. But
Speaker 2: for many people it's like having no insurance at all.
Speaker 2: And that's the reality of where we are. I think
Speaker 2: that the sooner we all recognize it, it is a
Speaker 2: political issue. It is on the ballot. Every couple of years,
Speaker 2: it's on the ballot in states. I know, our organization
Speaker 2: has worked in states like Minnesota and Colorado pursuing prescription
Speaker 2: drug affordability boards to lower the costs of prescription drugs
Speaker 2: in these states. And you know, we work with govern
Speaker 2: the Walls in Minnesota and got that pass and have
Speaker 2: a board there to bring down costs. And it's unfortunately
Speaker 2: become an extremely partisan issue. I have never been a partisan.
Speaker 2: Organization is nonpartisan, but it's impossible to not state the
Speaker 2: obvious and that you know, the Democratic Party has done
Speaker 2: far more to bring down those costs of insurance, of healthcare,
Speaker 2: of prescription drugs, and the Republican Party seems to want
Speaker 2: to bring us back to an era where it's everyone
Speaker 2: fighting for themselves. I've once heard my congressman say around
Speaker 2: the time of ACA repeal efforts in twenty seventeen that
Speaker 2: he thinks people should have skin in the game. And
Speaker 2: I actually met up with them at a town all
Speaker 2: and said, well, do you realize were our people. This
Speaker 2: is literal flesh and blood. This is what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Having skinned the game for them is legit, and they,
Speaker 2: unfortunately haven't ever put themselves in the position of somebody
Speaker 2: who's looking at going to the er having chest pain.
Speaker 2: I had a patient come in five days after starting
Speaker 2: to have chess pain, had completed a heart attack and
Speaker 2: was already in heart failure. We had about fifty percent
Speaker 2: of their art function lab. Had they come in right
Speaker 2: at the beginning, we could have gotten them off from
Speaker 2: gotten a balloon, opened up an artery, and gotten them
Speaker 2: back to normal. But they said, well, you know, not
Speaker 2: having insurance, this is a big cost. Unfortunately, now they've
Speaker 2: you know, someone now will end up on disability. They'll
Speaker 2: get Medicare from that. You know that fifty some drill person.
Speaker 2: This is pre ACA days. This is two thousand and
Speaker 2: eight or nine somewhere in there. That's just the reality
Speaker 2: for way too many people. I've had people tell me, well,
Speaker 2: I sat out in the in the parking lot for
Speaker 2: a while deciding whether or not I should come in,
Speaker 2: but it got bad enough I decided I had to
Speaker 2: come in. You know. So those are the people that
Speaker 2: I'm looking out for. That I think so many of
Speaker 2: my colleagues are looking out for. Definitely, now a majority
Speaker 2: of physicians kind of in that camp of out there
Speaker 2: fighting for voting for expanded healthcare you know, depending on
Speaker 2: the specialty, it goes up and down a bit, but
Speaker 2: it's probably I think I saw a couple of years
Speaker 2: ago for the first time it's more than fifty percent
Speaker 2: are kind of leading, voting and advocating on the side
Speaker 2: of Democrat at policies. That's a shift and that's just
Speaker 2: the reality we see every day that's caused the shift
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't thank you enough, doctor Davidson for your work,
Speaker 1: for your advocacy, for the use of your platform to
Speaker 1: speak out and encouraging others to do the same. We're
Speaker 1: living in extraordinary times and it is it is good
Speaker 1: every once in a while to talk to good people
Speaker 1: that are trying to move us in the right direction.
Speaker 1: So really appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that, and I appreciate having the time
Speaker 2: to talk with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That is it for me today. Dear friends
Speaker 1: on Woke af as always, power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fuck.