A request: send me good state health policy (re-send, sorry!!!)
NB: I think it’s hell of tacky when people re-send newsletters (“look at me, mommy!”) but I sent this on a hot summer Sunday when normal people don’t check their email—I’m re-sending because the replies I got from this one have been so useful (I’ll be sure to get back to everyone!) and I’m hoping some others of you might have some good stuff in the queue. Keep on trucking and please join me in phonebanking for Zohran Mamdani. — TF
What's shaking, everyone.
Hope you’re staying cool. Lots of news happening, none of it good. In this dismal context I come to you with a question.
I'm leaving my job and have landed a gig advising the Wisconsin Legislative Socialist Caucus—four ambitious lawmakers with a good number of allies—on health policy. My goal is to assemble a suite of policies and bills that can create a comprehensive, cohesive vision for what the beginnings of health justice in Wisconsin should look like. It's unlikely that anything would pass before 2026 (or likely 2028), but the Wisconsin Dems are rudderless — there's no vision, there's no aspiration, there's just a decade of cowering and the ceaseless sucking sound of "not Republicans." Our hope is that by assembling a core of both radical and ambitious-but-slightly-more-moderate positions; declaring the world that can be—that should be—we can fill the void at the core of Wisconsin legislative politics.
As far as I know I'm the only person in or around the Legislature doing something like this. So I come to you for help!
I would love to know what state policies, whether existing or proposed, have moved you. You can't win Medicare for All at the state level, but there's a ton of shit you can do. I've got a little list of things I want to draft—everything from aggressive insurer regulations to Basic Health Plans to antitrust to figuring out how to develop community-controlled clinics in rural areas (or making it easier for individual physicians to set up their own practices) to slow the terrible hyperconsolidation of regional healthcare provision—and I'm working on spinning out ideas for each of 'em, which I'll eventually whittle down and start drafting legislation around. And I've started reaching out to people I respect across the country who are doing interesting things, but I know there's so much shit out there I haven't thought of. My request of you: can you send me interesting ideas? I'd love if they have existing language in other states I can study, but I'm also very happy to take a crack at something novel.
While I have no love for the Democratic Party and more often than not find it a hideous organization, I care deeply about Wisconsin—the unscrubbable residue from having been born here and swaddled in green and gold—and the millions of people here whose lives, never easy, have been totally wrecked over the past decade. This is a broken state and I live in a failing city and I just gotta put my shoulder to the wheel, you know, and this seems like a hell of an opportunity. Worrying about Wisconsin health policy and creating a vision for several years from now while first-graders are getting blackbagged and World War III revs up; riding backseat in the unstoppable bus mowing over millions of people—it feels like playing marbles at the lip of a volcano. But what else am I gonna do? Recently our legislative maps were partially un-gerrymandered and there's a belief that maps alone will "save us" so everyone can just chill out until 2026—that's stupid and they won't, of course, but I'll be goddamned if the corpse-eaters who run this state get another two years of it.
Elsewhere: Recently I watched Black Lizard and read The Unaccountability Machine and thought they were quite good. I gave a speech at Milwaukee's No Kings rally that I thought was fun. I was heartened by how many Palestinian flags I saw in the crowd.
Here’s a photograph of my dog, who is doing well:
God damn America but God bless you,
“ T-BONE “