Good Health Insurance Shouldn’t Be a Perk.

Dr. Jessica Edwards is a board-certified family medicine physician, health policy fellow, and the founder of Zahra Medical—a telehealth-focused practice committed to making quality healthcare more accessible. With a background in public health advocacy and lived experience as both a provider and parent, Dr. Edwards is a fierce voice for healthcare reform rooted in equity, practicality, and compassion.

In this eye-opening segment of The Humanity of Fame, host Kali and guest Dr. Jessica Edwards challenge one of the most accepted norms in the American healthcare system: that good insurance is tied to employment. Dr. Edwards discusses how this outdated model creates unequal access to healthcare—particularly for lower-income workers, gig laborers, and families working outside traditional corporate jobs.

Drawing from her health policy fellowship and referencing the book Healing America by T.R. Reid, Dr. Edwards compares the U.S. system to countries like Germany, where universal basic coverage is guaranteed to all, and upgrades (like concierge services or elective surgery) can be paid for separately. The takeaway is clear: healthcare in America doesn’t have to be this broken—there are better models out there.

Key Takeaways:

• The flaw in tying health insurance to full-time, white-collar employment
• Why equal access to basic healthcare benefits everyone—regardless of job title
• How countries like Germany successfully provide universal healthcare with optional add-ons
• The economic and ethical downsides of America’s “good job = good coverage” culture
• A reminder that better systems already exist, and we can learn from them

Guest Contact:
🌐ZahraMedical.com
Follow Dr. Edwards for real-talk insights on health equity, patient empowerment, and policy solutions.

Jessica Edwards MD, Humanity of Fame, job-based health insurance, universal healthcare comparison, Germany healthcare system, Zahra Medical, health policy reform, U.S. healthcare inequality, gig workers and insurance, healthcare tied to employment, Healing America T.R. Reid, better healthcare models, basic coverage for all

Find out more about Kali and the show HERE: https://humanityoffame.com/

Transcript

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There is a way for healthcare to be better, for it to be more comprehensive, for it to be more thorough, that starts with eliminating, only being able to get good health insurance if you work for a company. You know, through history, okay, you know, and I say history meaning in family, my family, other families, you get with a good company, you get that good medical insurance, versus, you know, you might work for a fast food restaurant and it's definitely not the same. It's not the same. And so, I will say, there's a really good book, Healing America by T.R. Reid. I had to read it for my health policy fellowship. Really great book. He traveled around the world, went to like nine different countries to see what their healthcare looked like. So he's like, America is jacked up, is the rest of the world like this? He found out it wasn't. Right. So one interesting piece is that Germany has done a really good job of having basic health coverage for everyone in their country. So when it comes to like prevention, you have to have a major surgery. Now, you decide you want to really like upgrade and you want to have like a concierge doc, you want to have plastic surgery coverage, you want to have, you know, just like all of these extra things, you can pay for that separately. Yeah. Everybody gets the same basic access to care. And that's what we haven't figured out here.