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Live Healthy Longer with Dr. Jim Polakof
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE?
If you’re over 55 – there is a lot to worry about when it comes to jeopardizing you Social Security and Medicare – as well as imminent danger to the 72 Million people on Medicaid!
Join Dr. Jim Polakof as he interviews Alex Lawson – Executive Director of the national organization – Social Security Works! (Just last week, Alex was a guest on the Rachel Maddow show discussing the perils facing these
programs).
With the severe cutbacks and sinister intentions of DOGE - Social Security – Medicare – and Medicaid are in serious jeopardy. Dr. Jim and Alex Lawson take a deep dive into the challenges that Boomers and other Americans face – and what we must do to prevent disaster!
Links from this episode:
Main Website: https://socialsecurityworks.org/
Take Action at: https://handsoffsocialsecurity.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialsecurityworks/
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/SSWorks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/social_security_works/
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Donald Trump thinks that he can place his hands anywhere. We're telling him hell, no, hands off our Social Security hands off our Medicaid, hands off Medicare.
Speaker 3:That was Congresswoman Sarah McBride saying hands off. Should baby boomers be worried about their social security, medicare and Medicaid, you bet? Welcome to another episode of Live Healthy Longer. As usual, our host is the well-known author, health expert and popular podcaster, dr Jim Polakoff, and he addresses important health issues that face our country and directly affect your well-being. So let's get right to it. Here's Dr Jim.
Speaker 4:Yes, this is Dr Jim Polikoff, with an episode that should be of concern to anyone over 55 years of age. Of course, the issue of what's happening to Social Security should cause apprehension among younger generations as well, whose money is withheld with less assurance that it's going to be available to them when the time comes. Now, over 66 million Americans depend on Social Security that's one out of every five citizens, and if the powers that be had their way, social Security would be privatized tomorrow and Medicare would just be another insurance plan. Historically, aside from a minority of caring wealthy people, the rich and powerful have had little compassion for the middle class and the poor. Despite the Trump administration's promises that Social Security benefits will not be cut, the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, has set its sights on this program. While an appeals court recently upheld an order preventing DOGE staffers to obtain access to your Social Security numbers, the Trump administration will appeal this all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. And keep in mind that Elon Musk has called Social Security nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, and he's got Trump's backing, so who knows how all of this is going to end, however, if your aging destiny is wrapped up in Social Security and Medicare, be thankful that you're not a Medicaid recipient. There is even less sympathy for this group of American citizens 36 million people are now at risk of having health coverage taken away by Medicaid work requirements. Unfortunately, there is a misconception that Medicaid is only for the poor. For over 50 years, medicaid has provided vital health insurance protections to seniors in nursing homes as well as low-income Americans of all ages. Although the majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are children and working-age adults, medicaid spends more money on long-term care for seniors and people with disabilities than anything else. Yes, there's much to be concerned about regarding Social Security, medicare and Medicaid, so let's get right into it.
Speaker 4:My guest for this episode is a leading expert in the field. Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, a coalition made up of over 340 national and state organizations that represent over 50 million Americans. On April 5th, social Security Works took part in mobilizing over 5 million people across the country to say hands off to Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. Welcome to my podcast, alex. Thanks for having me. Well, it's our pleasure. You know I covered a bit in my introduction, but perhaps you can enlarge the spotlight on Social Security Works. I know your organization is about safeguarding the economic protection those Americans who are dependent upon Social Security rely upon, and I'm curious about the 340 national and state organizations that are represented. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Social Security Works. That's the organization that I lead and we're dedicated to protecting and expanding Social Security, medicare, medicaid, lowering prescription drug prices. Basically, we follow the original vision of the Social Security Act, the New Dealers, francis Perkins. What they envisioned is an ever-expanding system of economic security in this country. When FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, he said this is a cornerstone that we're going to build on and each generation does its part expanding the system of economic security. Or they did up until the 1980s and then it sort of turned, and then they've been trying to chip away at. It turned and then they've been trying to chip away at it and now, you know, in Trump 2.0 with Elon Musk, they're really taking a chainsaw to it.
Speaker 1:So our organization, we understand that we can't do it alone. You know, alone our voice is not loud enough. So we pull together and work in coalition with hundreds of organizations who come at Social Security and Medicare, medicaid from a few different angles. For some of the groups, it's their main focus, like ours is the core mission. For others, it's part of their work. And so what we're able to do is, you know, tee up the fights that are most important, produce materials that are needed. You know some of our rural allies. For example, social Security is critical for rural communities.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But they might not be getting you know like really nice materials about the impact in rural communities. So we work in partnership with allies around the country to just ensure that together our voices are heard, stronger and louder than if any of us stand alone.
Speaker 4:Right, so the noise can be louder because you've got that sort of backup, which is good. Now, I had mentioned earlier in my introduction that we have over 66 million Americans who depend on Social Security, and half of them rely on these monthly checks for most of their income. Some can't get by without it. What do you consider the most important concern facing Social Security today?
Speaker 1:most important concern facing Social Security today. Elon Musk really I mean it's this unelected billionaire and the chainsaw that he's wielding just destroying the Social Security administration, so actually sort of total reliant on the system. We're talking about 73 million people and that's just so enormous. Social Security is not just retirement benefits. It's also survivors benefits. It's life insurance for the surviving children and the death of a breadwinner, disability insurance. So if a person faces a life changing illness or injury and can no longer work, they have disability insurance. And that's what Social Security is. It's social insurance, so you pay into it when you're working and then it's there for you when you need it.
Speaker 4:And it should be there for you. And that's, if you don't mind, I just want to get into a bit of history, because you mentioned FDR and tying this into the wealthy, because I think there could be some correlation going back to the early 1930s as to what's happening today, falling much like they have been on and off with these tariff situations. Businesses failed, unemployment rose dramatically. In fact, 25%, I think, of the America's workforce was unemployed at that time. So isn't it true that the Great Depression, in your opinion, was largely caused by the inequality between, or the inequality of wealth, I should say between, the rich and the poor?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean our, you know finer point on it. It was a Wall Street caused collapse of the global economy, which is really right where we find ourselves again. So I like to tell this part of the story a lot. What happens if you allow Wall Street and the billionaires to have everything and everyone else has nothing is scrambling for the crumbs that fall off of the oligarch's table. What happens is the system breaks down. That does not work, and you can't ever think that these billionaires are going to like stop of their own accord. No, they will play the system right into the dirt every time, so they can't not do what they're doing, which is just hoovering up all of the money. So, yes, Wall Street caused collapse of the global economy. Now you have the new dealers, like Francis Perkins, who's sort of the intellectual mastermind behind the New Deal with FDR.
Speaker 4:Going back to FDR right.
Speaker 1:Yep. So Francis Perkins was FDR's Secretary of Labor, the first woman to serve in the cabinet, and she is just a genius. And she also understood that in fixing the acute problem, so like in addressing the 25% unemployment and the acute effects of the Great Depression, we also needed to build a system that prevented the same thing from happening again. So it wasn't just to fix it one time, but it was to fundamentally reorder the system so that the billionaires were not able to crash the global economy again. And it worked, you know, for 90 years it has worked. And the way it's worked is it doesn't include the billionaires, it doesn't need Wall Street, it doesn't need politicians, it's just workers. We together create Social Security, which is also why the billionaires hate it so much, because there's no one profiting from it. That's the key. No one's making any money from Social Security. It's just there for us. 99 cents of every dollar that we pay in comes back to us in the form of benefits. Less than one penny of every dollar goes to administer the entire system.
Speaker 4:Which is amazing when you think of the red tape that goes on in Washington.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Or think of the red tape that goes on in Wall Street. I mean, if anyone's ever dealt with it, try to find fees of one percent anywhere in the private sector and you won't find them. And you know the entire system about a trillion and a half dollars every year in benefits going out is administered for less than a penny of every dollar that goes in. It's amazing. And there's infinitesimally low levels of fraud, waste and abuse. The reports come out every year showing that Now obviously any amount you can do better. But look, compare it to Wall Street. There is no comparison. This is just an efficiently managed, incredibly effective program that works.
Speaker 4:And now and they want to privatize it and obviously I think you bring up a very good point. It costs less than 1% to run it. If it went private, think of what it's going to cost the public at that point in time.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they'll sock on a 20% just so they can buy a golden yacht or whatever it is the billionaires do with their billions, you know, and that's the point. This is the old. So where we are now is it's Wall Street strikes back and that's the billionaires have put one of their own, the richest man in the world, elon Musk, an unelected South African billionaire who's got a chainsaw and he's just hacking away at the administration that's right.
Speaker 1:So he can't get his money, his hands on our money, so the money is held in trust and by law they can't touch our benefits. So what they've done is actually really we didn't actually think that they'd ever do this, because it's so crazy, but they're destroying the administration, the ability of to get our money to us.
Speaker 4:The infrastructure.
Speaker 1:Right, because it's hard to get checks out to tens of millions of people on time and in full every single month. But you know, here's the facts For 90 years, through war and peace, through boom and bust, through health and pandemic, social Security has never missed a single payment. Now, all of a sudden, a couple of months after this billionaire you know gets in there with the goal, the stated goal, of destroying Social Security, and all of a sudden there's all these problems happening.
Speaker 4:Well, exactly, Checks are coming out late. In some cases You've also got because it's not only Social Security that's cut so many jobs, but also your regional offices now where you depend upon IT, for example, where seniors, if they need to get a hold of someone at Social Security, it could be a four or five hour wait. I've heard of people whose calls are disconnected after that four or five hours. I mean, this is all the junk that they're throwing in there to make it more difficult for recipients.
Speaker 1:That's entirely correct, and so I spend. You obviously know what's going on. I spend a lot of time trying to, you know, educate sort of the corporate press, because they have a different starting point. Like it's like Elon Musk is trying to do something good and is failing at it. Right, and I'm like no, none of the things that he's doing make any sense under that rubric. All of them make sense under the rubric of he's trying to destroy the program. He's trying to cause a crisis. As soon as you understand that that's his goal, everything makes sense Firing all of the workers who have the actual knowledge needed to make things happen. Hollowing out entire offices to create a bureaucratic morass so people actually, you know they have to clear some hurdle, but the office is gone so they can't anymore. Firing workers in the front office, closing offices and then pushing more people into those offices. All of it makes sense as soon as you understand what the goal is. This is an old con.
Speaker 1:You kneecap the mailman, then you complain that the mail is late and then you just so happen to have a cousin who's in the private mail delivery service, He'll cost four times as much and he'll deliver a fifth of the service. But that's privatization, the miracle of the market as they talk about. It's just corruption that we're looking square on corruption, corruption and weaponization. So now they're using Social Security to punish their enemies and they went after the governor of Maine and used Social Security to try to punish the governor of Maine.
Speaker 1:They've gone after immigrants who are legally here. They're legally here and allowed to work, and they just weaponized Social Security to rip their Social Security numbers that are only for working. They cannot claim benefits. They took those away so that these people, who again are legally here, are no longer able to work. I mean, that is not what Social Security is for. It's not for deciding how to punish your enemies. And always remember I say this you know this is not a light line, but if you're okay with the boot on someone else's neck, just know, at some point you're going to find it on your own, Exactly.
Speaker 4:That boot is going to crush your neck, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:That's how it works Every time Now isn't there.
Speaker 4:You know, there's a talk about scare tactics. There's this idea, of course, that by 2035, social security is going to go broke. I mean, that's kind of the picture. Obviously, it's not going to go broke broke, but it's going to start getting into a crucial state of oh my God, are we going to be able to afford this Now? Isn't it true, talking about the billionaires, that I picked up an interview that you did, which I thought was very interesting? Isn't it true that the billionaires at a certain point not only the billionaires, the millionaires at a certain point, they get cut off for having to pay any more into Social Security? There's a chopping block where, okay, you paid so much into it, now you don't need to pay any more, and isn't that part of what is crippling the system?
Speaker 1:It is. So you only pay in on the first $176,000 of wages. After that you don't pay in a nickel. It's an artifact of history. It made no sense then. You know some scholars can argue about whether it made sense then, but no scholars argue about whether it makes sense now. Everyone agrees that the cap makes no sense now, especially after the loss of traditional pension benefits. You know workers used to have a. That's gone for the vast majority of workers. So tens of millions of people right now rely on Social Security for the vast majority of their retirement.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and if the millionaires and the billionaires basically just paid into it like everyone else, there would be more than enough money to fund Social Security ad infinitum.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. People don't want to believe how simple it is. It's either billionaires pay the same rate as all of us, everyone else the vast majority of people pay on all of their income, right? The vast majority of people are below $176,000 a year right now. So billionaires pay the same rate as everyone else, or everyone's benefits get cut. The average benefit right now is around $2,000 a month, right? So are you gonna take it out of somebody who is living on $24,000-ish a year, or are you gonna take it on literally the richest people the world has ever known, and all you're asking is that they pay the same as everyone else, not more. Just the same.
Speaker 1:So the choice is not really a choice, it's just super clear, and that is why Elon Musk is destroying Social Security. Right? He doesn't want to pay the same rate as the rest of us. In fact, he wants to destroy Social Security and then give a giant trillions of dollars in tax handouts to himself and to his fellow billionaires. So it's all about just understanding that.
Speaker 1:The only question and that's why I liked starting with history it's the same story Should the billionaires have everything and everyone else is left scrambling for crumbs, knowing that that inevitably leads to economic calamity?
Speaker 1:Or should we just have some common sense deeply American systems like social security rewards hard work, delayed gratification. It represents the best of American values. Should we just let Social Security have a small break on the greed of the billionaire class and the vast majority of Americans? Over 90 percent, over 90%, republican Democrat Independents say not one penny cut from Social Security, and the majority of Americans, again across partisan lines, say they want to just have billionaires pay the same rate as everyone else, and then not only can we pay benefits forever, in time and on time and in full, but we can expand benefits for everyone.
Speaker 1:Now, just to circle it all the way back, I will say we have to get through this danger that we're in right now, because checks are not going to go out due to the cuts that have already been made and we can't look to politicians to save us on this. There's no cavalry coming. It's up to us. We are the cavalry. We need to raise our voices together and when millions of Americans stand together, that's how we're going to stop this destruction of Social Security.
Speaker 4:Well, and we're going to get to it at the end, but that's why you're having this mobilization. You know today where people need to turn out and I'm going to urge our listeners please, I mean, just take a few minutes and obviously, if there's a demonstration, you can join, join it. And I know there are certain places where and we can get into this a bit later where people could get involved. But we haven't discussed Medicare and Medicaid, which are two other problems obviously tied into Social Security. What's your take on what's happening with Medicare and today with Medicaid? Obviously, people are going to have to prove they have a certain amount of income, or it's going to be income related. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, the thing that Francis Perkins would be deeply disappointed in all of us is that we still don't have guaranteed health care for everyone in this country. It was part of the original New Deal and part of the package a national health program. Because how can you actually have security if you're just one illness or injury away from bankruptcy? Right, that's fake, that's not security. So in the 60s we were able to get Medicare, which is sort of guaranteed health. Traditional Medicare is guaranteed health care. So four people 65 and over and some certain other folks who are dealing with disabilities or chronic illnesses, but generally it's for people 65 and over. And then Medicaid is a program that has a lot of hats that it wears and one of them is it's the largest provider of long-term care in this country. For the majority of people. It's the only provider of long-term care in this country Between one and two and two-thirds of people, so between half and two-thirds of people in nursing homes are covered by Medicaid. If that goes away, the whole nursing home system collapses.
Speaker 4:Exactly the seniors are involved, the same people that we're concerned about In our particular podcast. Those baby boomers are the ones that are directly affected, particularly if they're disabled.
Speaker 1:And their family is silent generation and a lot of baby boomers have actually gone through this with their parents where they find that there is no American long term care program and you know they're dealing with a family member who needs 24 hour skilled nursing say, memory care, alzheimer's, dementia there's a host of these are not illnesses and situations that family could just step up and take care of, right when people are working to get skilled nursing for loved ones, this is one of the most difficult decisions that families have to make and then to go through it, they have to go through this ridiculous process where they're transferring assets, basically because Medicaid is a means tested program. They have to get their parent or loved one or themselves into a situation where they qualify for Medicaid or they bankrupt themselves and their family in just a few years or a year because the costs of long-term care are astronomical.
Speaker 4:And the worse this gets, the more people are going to be on the streets ultimately that's my personal prediction if this continues.
Speaker 1:There's nowhere else for people to go. That's why, right, I mean, if you're destroying Social Security or you're making people miss checks, they're not going to get their money. And again, social Security is our money. No one gives us anything. You crush Medicaid, which is what the Republicans' budget reconciliation package does. It cuts $890 billion from Medicaid. They're hemming and hawing like oh, you don't know that for certain. Yes, we do. Yes, we do, we know that. And they're going to have to put pen to paper soon, now that they've passed the framework and they're pushing to destroy Medicaid. Because that's what that cut would do. It would destroy Medicaid. Medicaid's over if you cut eight hundred and ninety billion dollars from it. And then again, that means the nursing home system collapse, that means more people on the street. That is just, it's catastrophic. And all of it is so that they can give tax handouts to Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies. So again, just people want it to be more complicated than it is. It's not. It's just a greedy band of billionaires who are trying to take everything steal our money, steal our health, steal our security, steal our democracy all because they'll never stop. Their greed is boundless. And so Medicaid is on the chopping block Medicare. There are portions of it on the chopping block, but really, with Medicare, their game plan is slightly different. Just to answer the three pieces On Medicare, they put Dr Oz in charge at CMS, which is what oversees Medicare.
Speaker 1:What he's doing is he's privatizing it as quickly as possible. He's handing it over to United Health so that they can delay and deny care. And if you want to talk about waste, fraud and abuse, that's where you look. And so in privatized Medicare, every year there's a giant bucket of money that the people who look at this the inspector generals and MedPAC. Every year they put out a report between $89 billion and $144 billion a year. So in budget terms that's $890 billion. Because budgets are in 10-year increments between $890 billion and $1.4 trillion. That's labeled overpayments. It's literally a bucket that's labeled getting ripped off.
Speaker 4:So, if you want, if you're serious about, going after and you're talking about the Advantage plans that are coming more and more into play.
Speaker 1:Right these are. They're so-called Medicare Advantage, but it's just privatized Medicare. It's just private insurance that's able to use the Medicare label. That's like the biggest, best trick of UnitedHealth was getting people to pretend that it wasn't them. But that's what the plan is on Medicare Just hand it over to United as quickly as possible. Where the corporate insurers delay care, deny care All of your listeners know about it.
Speaker 4:Well, I have a feeling that they'll treat everyone nice for a while, so we just kind of get lulled to sleep and then all of a sudden we're going to see more and more of our benefits denied. I think it's just you know. Obviously people at this point are going to sleep thinking, oh, I've got an advantage plan, I'm in better shape. But I think the future is going to be very harsh on us.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 4:I want to quote you.
Speaker 1:I will just say one thing on that, just because it's important, the point that you just made. But it's actually, it's happening now. So we don't have to wait for the future, because it's you know, rural hospitals are collapsing now. It's not about lulling people to sleep, it's that only 10% of the population need health care at any one time. So 90% of people in a risk pool don't need health care. And so what the corporate insurers do is they treat the 90%.
Speaker 1:If you don't need health care, you think you've got great health insurance. You're like, oh, I've got everything. What do you mean? I love my Medicare Advantage program and then just ask have you ever had to use it? You know, and if it's anything above, you know the yearly checkups then you're in that 10%. You're going to get an entirely different situation. And if you're actually sick, you know. If you're, I'm sorry if you're very sick. So the people who need it most are the people who get denied and delayed the most, because it's profitable to kill people who need health care. It's not profitable to provide health care. It's profitable to deny health care.
Speaker 4:It's not a sad, sad situation.
Speaker 1:So that's the setup.
Speaker 4:Yeah, alex, I want to quote you. You spoke recently at a US Senate Aging Committee meeting and you stated I believe correct me if I'm wrong Republicans, democrats and Independents all agree that I'm talking about the general population. Republicans, democrats and independents all agree that not one single penny should be cut from Social Security, medicare and Medicaid. So there's absolutely a bipartisan agreement everywhere in this country except here in Washington DC. I think that was part of your quote. So expound upon this a bit. You know that. What's it going to take to change the minds of the Republican politicians?
Speaker 1:They have to be more scared of their constituents than they are of their donors, of not getting reelected.
Speaker 1:And exactly so right now, they're scared of their donors. And they're scared of their donors because, like, if you cross their donors, you know, like Elon Musk, for example, he's going to dump, you know, all this money into your race and you're going to lose because he's going to to wreck your career. Now, at a point, they're going to actually be more worried about their constituents, right? So, like Elon Musk, they're afraid of his money, but it's all comes down to they're afraid of losing their power. Comes down to they're afraid of losing their power. So, you know, a wise person told me there's really only one election, that politicians care about their own, and so that's what they're focused on. But right now, a lot of their constituents are under. They just don't know who's on whose side, which is because the Republicans lie. I mean, like right now, they're still lying, like, oh, no, we're not going to cut Medicaid. Right, they're like, no, we're not going to cut Social Security. They have plans to do both, but they go and lie about it.
Speaker 1:Fox News One America you know all of them who are basically painting this picture that the Republicans are the ones who are standing up for Social Security, for Medicaid, for Medicare, and the Democrats are either lying about their plans or the Democrats are actually the ones who are bad on these issues, and you know it is one of those situations. I travel a lot and I talk to rooms full of people and the first part is really easy. Everyone loves Social Security, everyone loves Medicare, people love Medicaid, people hate pharmaceutical corporations and high drug prices. That's the easy part. The next part is where there's so much misinformation out there. It's who's actually doing what, and you know, I think the Democrats need to do a better job of making it clear that they are fighting for working people.
Speaker 1:Exactly, that's very true Are on the side of working people. At the same time, the media needs to be honest that the Republicans are literally never on the side of working people. It's just not true. The whole faux populism thing is belied by their actions in Washington DC. But until that breaks through and I do think you're starting to see a breakthrough on Social Security You're starting to see a breakthrough because people are hearing through their own personal networks, their friend groups, maybe their church, maybe a book group, whatever it is. They're hearing from people that their checks aren't getting to them on time. Their checks have been delayed or they're not in full, and that's starting to bubble up. And we're hearing that in DC that offices are getting crushed right now by their constituents and they have fewer workers to handle these complaints.
Speaker 4:And, in addition to all of that, you know, let's face it you even you're getting to the point where you have to prove your identity and you can't even get to an office or you can't get somebody on the phone to go through that. I mean, you're absolutely right on that. So let's get to the event that is happening today, which, hopefully, and I would like to tell our listeners even though this event is happening today, we also want you to keep involved, get involved beyond today. So I'd like you to tell us about hands-off social security, what people can do about it, even if they don't happen to be in an area where there's a protest going on. Is there something they can do about it, even if they don't happen to be in an area where there's a protest going on? Is there something they can do, and what should they look forward to doing with your organization in the future?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great question, and so first I'd like to just say if you go to handsoffsocialsecurityorg, you'll find a bunch of events happening today. A bunch of events happening today, but that's not all that we are looking at. It's not a one-day thing. We've had over 70 events already at social security offices. These are protests where people go to their local social security office and the ask is just to go to your office and say hands off social security. We will help you get a crowd there. We'll help you get press Security. We will help you get a crowd there. We'll help you get press there. We'll help you get electeds there. Invite your member of Congress. If they show up, that's the news story. If they don't show up, that's the news story.
Speaker 4:Have their opponents show up.
Speaker 1:They're happy to these days, and so we've done over 70 of them. We've had some slight victories, we've had them roll back some of their worst plans, but they just keep looking for dozens and dozens of events at Social Security offices and hundreds of events of a variety. So a lot of members of Congress are going to do, you know, maybe they're not going to do a protest at a Social Security office, but they'll have a town hall or they'll show up at a local office to tell the workers that they're doing a good job. We're going to see a variety of actions taken today and we encourage everyone like if you can't make it to a protest, just know this is the day to fight back on Social Security. So make noise in whatever way you can Call your members of Congress, post on social media. The unifying message is hands off social security. But also, the most important thing, as you noted, is this is not over today. Tomorrow, we're going to still be pushing for people to go to their social security offices and say hands off social security. We'll still be working in that grand coalition that we have, fighting against the billionaires' destruction of Social Security until we win, because that's what we do.
Speaker 1:We understand, and I've been doing this for 15 years. I can tell you that we've never faced anything as bleak as this. But we've faced down some really, some really incredible odds. But all we have to do is get America to understand that Social Security is under threat. As soon as that understanding is reached, the backlash is enormous, and it's not just from one part of the country or one partisan group, it's from everywhere. It's every nook and cranny of this country. Love Social Security and so hands off socialsecurityorg. Today is our day of action. Make noise, get loud, get in the virtual faces of your politicians. Call them, post on their pages, just make as much noise as possible, but also just plug in, because we're not done. We're going to just keep going until we win.
Speaker 4:Right, and I think those are all great suggestions. I like the idea, too, that there may be people in different communities where nothing much is going on, but they can basically contact your organization. You'll help them organize in their own backyard, so that. But they can basically contact your organization. You'll help them organize in their own backyard, so that's something they can do. They can be proactive and again, as you say, obviously, talking to the politicians, you know hammering down, you know emails to them, et cetera. And also I just want to make it very clear to people that they can come to your website for all of this information. If I'm correct, it's socialsecurityworksorg, am I right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and socialsecurityworksorg is our main website and also handsoffsocialsecurityorg is our campaign website. So on either of those, you can get in touch with me. All my contact info is on there. You can get in contact with my team. We will help you host an event and we've done enormous mass mobilization. On April 5th we had millions of people in the streets when we brought together all the issues. You know, a day of action like today but don't think that it has to be enormous A small group at your Social Security office in the local press, that story alone could be enough. That changes that scale where the politicians realize. You know what I'm now more scared of my constituents than I am of my donors.
Speaker 4:And that's exactly right. Once the pressure is put on them, obviously they're going to start to say I've got to speak up on the behalf of my constituents because they're going to see the majority, as you have mentioned, are really in favor of preserving Social Security, medicare and Medicaid. Alex, you've been extremely informative and I'm going to again. Our website is going to promote how they can get in touch with you, as well as, obviously, what you've mentioned today. But I do want to thank you for being so informative and I really hope that this helps normalize and get people behind your action. We'll continue to push it because I believe in what you do.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me, and hopefully our conversation can continue as well, because we're not going to win this fight in one, but we're never going to stop until we win. So I look forward to our future conversation.
Speaker 4:Well, I plan to if you don't mind, come back for updates every so often to see what's going on. Keep our people informed. That's how we're going to get them motivated. That is Thank you so much. Thank you, I appreciate it, and I'm going to be right back with some updates on RFK Jr's measles saga, as well as the ban on fluoride we've been talking about in our drinking water.
Speaker 3:As Dr Jim said, you can learn more about Social Security Works at socialsecurityworksorg. That's socialsecurityworksorg, but you can also find more information and links by coming to our website, jamespolakoffcom Plus. Here you can access other great Live, healthy, longer podcasts, along with terrific blogs written by Dr Jim. That's jamespolakoffcom. James P-O-L-A-K-O-F dot com. Now back to Dr Jim.
Speaker 4:You may recall, in our previous episode we discussed RFK Jr's bungling of the growing measles crisis. Well, here's the latest. On four separate occasions Kennedy has said the measles outbreak in Texas is beginning to subside. I quote our strategy has been very successful. Well, once again he's wrong. The disease has grown to over 500 cases of measles in West Texas. In 98% of these cases, those contracting the disease were unvaccinated. Dr Peter Marks, the FDA's former vaccine regulator, stated A 26% increase. That's not flattening. The Texas outbreak has also seeded outbreaks in New Mexico, has also seeded outbreaks in New Mexico, oklahoma and Kansas, so it's far from over. However, kennedy has bigger fish to fry. As you've likely heard, utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in our drinking water. Now RFK Jr is directing the CDC to stop recommending fluoridation in our communities nationwide. Talk about a growing controversy. Well, both my Boomers of America and Live Healthy Longer podcast will be covering this important issue very soon. This is Dr Jim Polakoff, and thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2:Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of wind, for purple mountain majesty above the fruited plain to play. America, america, america, god shed his grace on thee. Any crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. Come on, cher Whoo, america, america, god shed his grace on thee, oh, and he crowns my good With brotherhood From sea to shining sea.
