October 21 – Are Glitches Impeding Enrollment in the New Insurance Exchanges?; We Need Choice in Healthcare Providers, Not Insurers; The Destructive Innovation of the Education “Reform” Movement

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the president’s vow to fix the website launching the Affordable Care Act and assess the damage to the already battered initiative known as Obamacare that has been under relentless assault since it narrowly passed into law. Kevin Lucia, Research Professor and Project Director at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Initiative joins us to discuss how much the technical glitches are impeding enrollment in the new health insurance exchanges.

Part 2

Then we hear from a physician Dr. Philip Caper who is a founding board member of Maine Allcare, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group committed to making health care in Maine universal, accessible and affordable for all. We will explore his contention that the Affordable Care Act is far too complicated and that the choice people really want is a choice of healthcare providers, not insurers and discuss his article “The High Costs of Complexity in Health Care Reform.”

Part 3

Then finally we speak with former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch about her new book “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools”. We discuss the destructive innovation pushed by billionaires and Wall Street hedge-fund managers who are leading the charge to de-fund public education in the name of “reform” while propagating myths about miracle charter schools and claims that public education is broken and beyond repair.