Above: Dr. Margaret Flowers at the Candler Building in Baltimore, MD on Medicare’s birthday, July 30, 2013. Credit Bill Hughes
On Monday morning, July 30, 2013, in front of the historic Candler Building, in Baltimore, MD, I interviewed Dr. Margaret Flowers. She is a long-time advocate of a Medicare-for-All Healthcare system. The Candler Building was the first operational headquarters of the Social Security Administration in this country. It dates back to 1936. In 1965, the U.S. Congress passed the Medicare law.
Today, Dr. Flowers underscored “is Medicare’s 48th anniversary.” She predicted that Obamacare will be found to be “totally inadequate” and will simply “privatize” the system even further. Dr. Flowers labeled Obamacare a “win for the corporations,” which she insisted are part of the for-profit, “Medical-Industrial Complex.” About “45,000” people die each year, Dr. Flowers continued, because they lack healthcare. It is estimated that between 47 and 50 million citizens in this country don’t have any healthcare coverage at all and that bankruptcies related to failure to pay medical bills are on the rise.
Dr. Flowers concluded by saying that the for-profit Medical-Industrial Complex is “standing in the way” of a just and equitable “Medicare-for-All” healthcare system – a “human right” for all Americans. To learn more, go to: http://www.pnhp.org, http://www.healthcare-now.org/ and http://www.mdsinglepayer.org.