Interview with Mandela Barnes for Governor

Transcript

Chris: 0:36

Welcome to pulse check, Wisconsin.

Chris Ford: 0:56

So healthcare is not political when you are the patient in the hospital bed and is not political when you cannot afford your medication. Certainly not political when hospitals close and communities lose access to care. Here in the state of Wisconsin, the decisions that are made in Madison, we've seen directly affect the health, the safety, and the stability of our communities. And that's why conversations like this matter. Welcome back to post Check Wisconsin. I'm Dr. Chris Ford, emergency physician advocate and your host, and today we are talking about healthcare access, the state budget, and what leadership could look like during a time in which our country is very divided. Today I'm joined by former Lieutenant Governor and current candidate for Governor State of Wisconsin Mandela Barnes Mandela. Welcome to post Check Wisconsin,

Mandela Barnes: 1:40

Dr. Ford. Thank you so much for having me. I really just appreciate your advocacy and grateful to have a chance to have this conversation.

Chris Ford: 1:47

Absolutely, man, I appreciate you being here. So we'll go ahead and kick off here. You know, it is a wide field on the Democratic side in terms of democratic candidates, and we were waiting, you know, is he gonna jump in? Is he not gonna jump in? There's been a lot of conversation back and forth, right? But you finally made the decision to jump in. What made now the right time for you to run for governor?

Mandela Barnes: 2:06

For sure. This is a moment where things cannot be more difficult for people. It's a critical moment for our entire country, but specifically our state. And the tough part is that you look at a state like Wisconsin that has typically led the way before on so many issues. We've been bold. We have been at the forefront, but we have been held back by this Republican control legislature and the same legislature that I served in. It was a difficult time back then, is one of the reasons I ran for Lieutenant Governor because I knew. We had to make something happen, at least if we changed the narrative in the way that we were speaking as a state. And so I look at this race and the, the urgency of the moment, the sheer urgency of the moment. We have a president who hasn't done a single thing to make things better for people. In fact, he's made things worse. And we need leadership that's not just gonna stand up to Donald Trump. Like that's, that is in vogue standing up to Donald Trump, right? Like that's not, that is, that is a popular thing to do. But what we also need. People who are gonna provide real solutions and bring experience to governing. I'm proud to have been right alongside Governor Evers during my time in office. We worked on a number of issues. Uh, I mean, I guess that number is limitless if we're being honest. I really appreciate the trust that he had, whether it was working side by side or the things I got to do on my own. Had the chance to work with a number of public health officials with our health Equity council that I helped get established. I served on the Health Equity Council. We provided real solutions. We provided some grants across the state. The work we did during the pandemic was hand in hand with health professionals across this entire state. And those relationships that I've built, they don't exist anywhere else in this campaign on either side. And that's why I'm excited for this opportunity to continue to grow those relationships until Wisconsin is the healthiest state in the entire country. I had a chance to lead our climate change task force, and most people look at it, oh, clean energy and conservation. Yes, of course. But there are public health impacts and we have public health professionals that work with us right alongside us, uh, in the commission of that work.

Chris Ford: 4:14

Yeah. I mean, and you missed it, right? So you served on the assembly, you served lieutenant Governor, and those experiences matter. Those relationships matter, especially when you're talking about maintaining, right? The, the state of Wisconsin and how we move forward in the setting of such division right now, and such limitation that we have. How do your experiences, you know, in government here in the state of Wisconsin, how do you think those experiences will shape how you would lead if you are elected governor?

Mandela Barnes: 4:40

Man, I, I can tell you that having been on the legislative side and having been on the executive side, we've bumped into a bunch of roadblocks, a lot of windows that just wouldn't open for us. And let say one window or one door closed might lead to another. Sometimes a closed door led to another closed door and another closed door. At which point you just gotta find a window. Uh, you gotta find some way through. And that's exactly what we've been doing. There's been so much trial and error. Given this moment that we're in, I talked about the urgency. You know, we don't have time to try to figure it out in the first 90 days on the job. We have to be ready to go on day one and bring that experience through trial and error that we have already been through. Knowing what has worked, knowing what hasn't worked, and knowing what we have a unique opportunity to at least explore.

Chris Ford: 5:29

Yeah. Yeah. On this show, you talked about it before. We, we talk about healthcare through the lens of real people and real outcomes, because that's what really matters here, right? You hear a lot of the noise outside, but here in the state of Wisconsin, we're focused on real families, real outcomes and, and real circumstances that people are in. You've worked on badger care. Let's talk about Badger care. What is your current vision for BadgerCare expansion or BadgerCare in the state of Wisconsin in your first a hundred days of being governor?

Mandela Barnes: 5:56

We'll always point to the fact that we are one of 10 states that has yet to expand our Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act, and we're 15 years behind right now. And actually more than 15 years behind. We're 17 years behind.

Chris Ford: 6:10

Yeah,

Mandela Barnes: 6:11

and the idea that. Unfortunately, Republicans in the legislature have denied people the access to care that they deserve is pretty shameful. It's embarrassing, and not just the first a hundred days. This is a day one priority, and I've been very adamant that we'll go on a special session the very first day. Right after legislators are sworn in because it is that big of a priority that there needs to be a vote on BadgerCare. And I've also made it very clear that if a state budget comes across my desk and we have yet to expand BadgerCare, that budget will not get signed. It will be vetoed and also. And also, I mean, the other, another thing too, like in the legislature, like in, during my time out in the legislature, I worked with an advocacy organization, uh, called State Innovation Exchange. We worked on policy, uh, across the states. One of the you things in particular people were working on back in 2017 was a public option for their Medicaid. Like these are states that had already expanded Medicaid and now we're opening the doors for a public option, which is absolutely necessary, absolutely needed here in Wisconsin. But this is, you know, this is nine years ago. We're talking about states were implementing it. Uh, Nevada's getting, you know, their program is rolled out and I do truly believe that. In order for us to be able to lower costs and increase access, uh, the public option will help put some competition in the private market.

Chris Ford: 7:34

Yeah. You know, one of the things that, you know, we've invited folks on to talk about BadgerCare Medicaid, the state here in Wisconsin. Um, and we've invited people on both sides of the aisle, right? We've only got a certain subset of people,'cause the folks on the other side don't wanna talk apparently. But one of the things that they bring up just commonly is long-term budget stability concerns, right? So that's the conservative standpoint. In your case, in, in your estimation, how do you expand access while still addressing those concerns about long-term budget stability here in the state of Wisconsin?

Mandela Barnes: 8:06

Well, I can tell you long-term budget stability has already been, uh, we already see the example of it. We have a surplus right now in Wisconsin. And with that being said, it's hard. I don't, I just don't understand how Republicans in a legislature can sit comfortably with a surplus while so many people are suffering. You hear some heartbreaking stories. I had a round table discussion in Kdot, Wisconsin about tariffs. We're talking about tariffs and the conversation shifted to healthcare and the grand conversation of expenses overall and everything just cost him more. A guy told me that he got the letter informing him that his health insurance premium was going to increase from$275 to over$1,600. And this is because of the vote to not extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Tom Tiffany. We probably won't come on the show because you know, I'm sure he doesn't wanna answer that question. He voted against extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits in the state legislature. He voted against accepting the Medicaid money. This is a person who has been anti-public health, who has been anti health overall in terms of this state and our ability for people to get the care they need. The KADO story. Not isolated at all. We all know somebody with a healthcare story. I was talking to a woman in Green Bay, first week of the campaign. She mentioned that, you know, she had a slip and a fall. Something that could happen to anybody. An accident and her bills started to pile up. They continued to pile up, and she could not afford to stay in her home anymore. She had to move. She had to leave her community. She had to uproot, upend her entire life because of something that could have happened to anybody. And so these conversations, they're not abstract, they're not hypothetical. This is real life for so many people.

9:56

all of us are very close to a healthcare story, but all of us are one emergency away from our own healthcare story.

Chris Ford: 10:03

And that's the truth, we see it in the ED all the time, right? You see people who are doing fine and all of a sudden get a cancer diagnosis or all of a sudden have a car accident driving to work, And it changes not only their, their physical health, it changes their financial health too, right? So they, they have a situation where they, they're now putting their savings into, their healthcare bills. They're cashing out their 4 0 1 Ks because they have to. You have elderly parents that are coming up now too, right? Have a fall, have something like this. We see this over and over and over again. And like you said, in the sitting, in the setting of where we have a surplus in the state of Wisconsin, it almost seems fiscally irresponsible to, to allow these situations to occur when you have so much on the back end, you know, on the, on the shoulders of our patients that we're seeing in Wisconsin, as well as our citizens.

Mandela Barnes: 10:49

So it's certainly fiscally irresponsible. It's also our money, it is our tax dollars that went to Washington DC that are coming back to us. So yeah, it, it's, it's fiscally irresponsible on both sides.

Chris Ford: 11:00

Yeah. Yeah. So we, you know, we have a lot of gaps here in Wisconsin, so rural care gaps, mental health, maternal health. If we've seen in recent years, workforce shortages we've seen nationally and myself and a couple of my colleagues have done. Numbers of interviews about folks reluctant to seek care and their clinics, dialysis, et cetera, where ICE is stationed in, in many of these states. From your perspective, where are the biggest healthcare access gaps in Wisconsin today?

Mandela Barnes: 11:26

Man, so they exist all over, and I remember running for Lieutenant Governor, I would talk about the healthcare mismatch because there are areas where there are hospitals and clinics. People don't have health insurance or mm-hmm. Can afford to go to a visit. And there are some areas of the state where people do have coverage, but a clinic or a hospital is an hour drive away. So this mismatch exists all across Wisconsin. But more specifically, one of the bigger problems we have is lack of access to one postpartum care. We're one of like two states, it's just us in Arkansas, I wanna say that doesn't have postpartum coverage under. Medicaid, but also you look at, you know, rural communities because of the lack of access to healthcare or health coverage and the lack of badger care expansion where maternal healthcare is in complete free fall. It's been a crisis since like I was in a legislature. These places are closing their doors expecting mothers can't get to an appointment. God forbid you have an emergency, you have to go into delivery. You weren't expecting. And it takes an hour to get to the hospital. You can imagine what kind of tragedy can come as a result of that.

Chris Ford: 12:47

Absolutely. You travel across Wisconsin and you said, you know, you've been everywhere on this campaign, even during your campaign as lieutenant governor as well, and you talk directly to voters. What are some of the top two or three issues that people are consistently bringing up, both in the rural setting as well as here in Milwaukee and the urban setting as well? I've

Mandela Barnes: 13:05

been all over this state. Gonna continue to get all over this state, even when I was out of office, had the great fortune and opportunity to travel the state. What I will say is, again, healthcare does come up organically. I don't have to bring it up to people. I, we were at an event doing a round table for healthcare in Racine, and before the event we went to go grab coffee. We're sitting at the restaurant and, you know, our service. She just went into a long conversation about healthcare. We told her, you know, while we were there. Actually, no, no, we didn't tell her while we were there. At first we were just, we were just having random conversation and health insurance came up. You know, mentioned my name and why I was there, but this is how organic healthcare conversations come up overall, just cost of living. Because as things get more and more expensive, wages have not kept up with that. So cost of living and quality of life, it all goes together. And people are, I mean, those are two. But another thing that comes up as well is our schools, our public schools are not fully funded. And because of the fact that the legislature has abdicated their responsibility, what we see is school districts and communities going to referendum every election cycle almost every year. It feels like there's an historic number of referendum questions, and these are people who are voting to raise their own taxes and not to build a new stadium. We're talking about just to keep the doors open. These school buildings and with these referendum questions and increase in property tax, people have had enough. They're getting sticker shock, and it will not end until the legislature decides to actually prioritize our students. To actually consider the future of this state and ensuring that there are opportunities for high quality education to be, to be received, to be accessed in every single zip code.

Chris Ford: 15:01

And like you said, every single zip code. We try to draw corollaries on this show from. That unite the urban and the rural communities because we see a lot of these issues are joined at the hip for both communities here. How do you make policy as governor that works or advocate for policy that works for urban and rural communities?

Mandela Barnes: 15:20

I'm glad you brought that up because you know, there's always a discussion about this urban rural divide. I'm using air quotes for people who are mm-hmm. Are listening only, and I'm using the air quotes because. There's so much more that unites us than divide us And every community I've traveled to, every community I've visited or lived in, it's been the same exact thing. People want a good school to send their children to. People wanna be able to go to the doctor, not worry about a surprise bill, and people want a good job that puts food on the table. It's pretty simple, pretty plain. But those opportunities have been taken away from far too many folks. I talk about my grandfather. You know, I talk with my parents all the time, but my grandfather moved to Milwaukee after his service in the Navy in World War ii. He got a job as a union steel worker, went in one day, came out 30 years later, and retired with dignity and relative comfort. The opportunities for people to be able to do that this day and age, they just don't exist the same way. It is wild to think that. In the late 1940s, someone could move from, a black man, could move from Louisiana to Wisconsin, find opportunity, build a life. And that wasn't just him, right? Like they were, it was, it was an entire middle class that existed. Either at that same exact factory or factories that are similar. And so what we are witnessing right now is, or not even right now, sorry, I need to go back decades because that factory closed a while ago and those jobs didn't just, you know, grow legs and the factory didn't just grow legs hop on a plane or a boat and go overseas. It was corporate greed and that corporate greed. Close down factories just like that, all across the industrial Midwest. But it happened particularly with a devastating impact in Wisconsin. And it is no different than the corporatization of our family farms here in Wisconsin coming in based on greed. They're showing up, destabilizing, and. Entire rural economies, pricing people out of competition, making it so hard, squeezing communities. And to that, I say the big problem that we have, or one big problem that we have is the fact that many of these corporations are still incentivized. They still get tax breaks. So another part of my day one agenda is closing those loopholes that allow wealthy corporations to get away without paying their fair share. When I say get away without paying their fair share, of course they need to pay their fair share in taxes, but also you can't get incentivized if you're shipping jobs overseas. You shouldn't be incentivized if you're outsourcing. Wisconsin jobs to artificial intelligence. You shouldn't be incentivized if you have these crazy ratios. The CEO pay the average worker salary. We have to ensure that working people get a fair chance and we have to make sure that the people, Wisconsin are not continuing to be taken advantage of

Chris Ford: 18:08

people first. This country, on a national level feels deeply divided right now and and there's a lot of reasons for that. From your perspective, what is driving that division?

Mandela Barnes: 18:20

So there are a number of things that are driving that division. We can go back to the conversation of greed because. You have people who are struggling, that are pointing a finger at each other as if they're the problem, as if they are each other's nemesis, as if either of them have worked to keep each other down, which couldn't be farther from the truth. And as people who are fighting for basic survival continue to point at each other, all that means is it's another day that the most wealthy and the most powerful in a way, unchecked off with the bag, taking the resources, the money. And as I mentioned, wages haven't kept up with inflation. They certainly haven't kept up with the growth of the market. They haven't kept up, you know, wages certainly haven't kept up with the grow. Uh, with, with the growth of, uh, the s and p, it hasn't kept up with CEO pay that is going through the roof. All these incentive packages that people are getting, while the people who actually generate do the labor that generate that wealth are forgotten about, they're disregarded. And so I will say. What is driving that again, is greed is one, but that also ties into power. It ties into politics because politicians have to create the pathway that allow for the wealthy to getaway without paying their fair share's. Politicians that cast the votes, that give these massive tax breaks and give people unchecked power without raising the wages and giving at least some power to. The working class, you know, at, at this point, the, the distance between labor and capital cannot be greater. Everything is going towards capital and hardly anything to labor. So when you have elected officials that make those decisions, that make it harder for working people to get ahead, you have this. Explosion of gross wealth and greed that continues to leave people behind and it creates political division because there are politicians that are going to go along and support it because it keeps them in office and everybody else pays the price and everybody else has to deal the impacts of that division.

Chris Ford: 20:29

Exactly, and, and you see it over and over again, especially here in Wisconsin. You see a lot of mistrust right now. Right? People don't know who to trust. They don't know if they can trust at the federal level, at the state level, what the arterial motive is. How do you as governor rebuild that trust in institutions, including the government, including in public health here in the state?

Mandela Barnes: 20:48

Everywhere I show up, uh, I level with people. I let them know exactly where I come from. Let them know exactly what my life has been, the good, the bad, the otherwise. I was born right on 26th and Locust The Heart. 5 3 2 0 6 zip code. Our state's ports, our nation's most incarcerated. I'm a proud product of Milwaukee Public Schools. I spent my entire life here besides college, went to Alabama a and m University. This school came back home. I worked on a campaign along the way, but I came back home and I let people know exactly what my household was like with a father That was, I worked third shift on an assembly line and a mother who is a public school teacher. I have been through the challenges that so many people are experiencing. I have been laid off from a job I thought I was gonna have for a while. Ended up, you know, one day doing okay the next day I'm, you know, applying for food share. I still have my food share card to remind me of those times. Of those days to know exactly and to never forget that people that I have gone through or people are going through. And sometimes people just need some help. People need some assistance. And as government, as the wealthiest nation on the entire planet, we should be able to provide that support to get people back on their feet. I have, you know. I've had energy assistance, unemployment, you name it, the list goes on. Almost every benefit program I have either, uh, I've either qualified for or been a part of, and that's ultimately my North Star. It's what keeps me going. It's what keeps me grounded because we have to do better. And as much as you know, I, you know, I, I want it out of that experience. I know that is the case for other people. I know that people. Aren't looking for a handout. People want to be able to be supported in hard times and right now some real hard times people are dealing with, and I know that as we have led the way so many times in this country before, this is a moment where we can get folks out of this economic rut.

Chris Ford: 22:47

Absolutely. Absolutely. Manila, I appreciate you coming out and having this conversation with us, but before we go, where can people follow your campaign? Where can people learn more?

Mandela Barnes: 22:57

Yeah, people can learn more@mandelabars.com. I'm on social media at the other Mandela, and, uh, I hope, uh, I hope we get to have a chance to talk again. Love to, you know, connect with you in person. Sit down, man, because I really appreciate this conversation. I appreciate the work that you're doing.

Chris Ford: 23:12

Absolutely, my brother. Always a pleasure. Well, thank you again for joining us a post check Wisconsin. These conversations matter because policy is public health leadership and affects outcomes, and inform communities make stronger decisions. I'm Dr. Christopher Ford. This is Ben Post Check Wisconsin. Thanks, bill.

Mandela Barnes: 23:27

Hey man. Take care.