In this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams, Stacey speaks to Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease specialist, epidemiologist and editor at large for public health at KFF Health News, about the threats to public health with the incoming Trump Administration. They talk through Trump’s appointees for the nation’s top health and science agencies like RFK Jr., how to bring scientific thinking back to policy making, and how to differentiate between public health and individual healthcare. Then Stacey explains how to make change by “power-mapping” an issue, finding out who is responsible for the problem, who has jurisdiction over it, and who is already thinking and talking about solutions. Make sure you subscribe to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams wherever you get your podcasts and on Youtube, so you don’t miss an episode.Learn & Do More:Check out KFF Health News to get health news and read about health policy research, and sign up for their newsletters at KFF.Org/Email
Full Episode
Hey guys, it's Tommy. We're taking a break for the holiday season, but we've got something special for you today. Instead of our usual episode, we're dropping a new one from Assembly Required, hosted by the one and only Stacey Abrams.
In this episode, she talks with Celine Gowder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist, about the threats to public health with the incoming Trump administration. They dig into what's at stake with appointees like RFK Jr., how to bring science back into policymaking, and the path forward to driving real change.
If 2024 is leaving with a lot of questions about the future, or if you've also found yourself shouting at the TV more than usual, stay tuned for this great episode, because if anyone knows something about not giving up, it's Stacey Abrams. Don't forget to subscribe to Assembly Required wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Crooked Media. I'm your host, Stacey Abrams. Since the election, we've been unpacking how the incoming administration and Project 2025 will actually work. What's possible and how can we respond? As a reminder, Project 2025 is the 900-page-long policy blueprint published by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.
With a complicit Congress and a compromised Supreme Court, their to-do list could undermine everything we rely on for a just society, from civil rights protections and environmental defenses to public education, free speech, and today's topic, healthcare.
When we think about human rights, when we think about the core of what makes us who we are, there is nothing more relevant and more fundamental than healthcare. The ability to participate in society begins with good health. I grew up in a family without health insurance. I grew up knowing that if I got hurt, if it wasn't major, it was going to be treated as minor.
Not because my parents didn't care, but because they simply didn't have the resources to get access to health care. And in fact, since I grew up and got access to health care, since my parents finally have health insurance, I can see a night and day difference in the way our lives are lived.
And I also feel an incredible degree of privilege because I know what it means to not have health care and to have it now. I am also deeply annoyed and sometimes outraged because the fight over healthcare is a fight that the people stopping it don't have to have. Every elected official in Washington, D.C. has healthcare, and it's the height of hypocrisy to deny it to others.
And in the wake of COVID-19, now more than ever, we should understand how vital and essential healthcare as a human right is. So while fighting to protect and improve healthcare in this country is not new, here are some of the ways that healthcare may be impacted by the next administration.
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