Dr. Simone Gold
speaker
456 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Dr. Simone Gold’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
These were just three months. And that was, put that in your academic career? That was during my emergency medicine training. After law school? After law school.
I said dirty, not complex, dirty. Okay, those are different. My... Before I worked for Senator Jeffords, I thought politicians didn't get it right because they didn't understand, they didn't know. And as soon as a smart person who's on the inside can advise them, they would be able to fix it. You know, it was very idealistic.
I thought, oh great, I will, you know, I'm a bedside physician. I could help them understand this. No, no, no. They understood the problem and they couldn't get the job done. So I was there and I remember they were talking about Medicare going bankrupt, by the way, same song, different year now. And I remember talking to my senator about that, and the obvious solution was to raise the age.
Because when the Medicare Act was signed into law, it was, I think, 1965, and the average life expectancy, I think, was 67. Fast forward in the 90s, Medicare still kicks in at age 65, but life expectancy, I think, was 76. Well, they never planned to have 11 years of Medicare coverage versus two years of Medicare coverage.
Anyway, when you looked at all the options, you know, overcharging wealthy people.
Correct. Times have changed. And also the other options of funding Medicare were worse. They were just, you know, make all rich people pay for it, which, by the way, would never have filled in the gap.
Limit options like you do in Canada.
But they're scarce, that's a good one. Limit options like much like you did in Canada. Just let people die or help them. But that was not with MAID, right? That's not palatable to Americans. So we heard from all these people Correct. Yet. We heard from all these people about ways to fix it.
And everyone, every single advocacy group that was presenting to us was in favor of raising the age from 65 to 67. We had Ralph Nader's group. We had the American Heart Association. We had, I think, the American Medical Association was on board. Everyone. We heard from like 12 company organizations. And over here, we heard from one organization. That was called the AARP.
Persons, I think. I was unfamiliar because I was young, and that was the only organization that spoke against raising the age limit. And I remember walking with my senator, and I said, well, obviously the solution is, of all the solutions, it's to raise the age limit. And he looked at me and said, Ms. Gold, do I know what the most powerful organization and lobbying organization in DC is? AARP.
And my heart kind of sunk because I knew that's the only solution that I could see at that time was just to raise the age limit. And nobody would have it. Nobody would do it. Nobody would talk about it. And I just remember feeling pretty discouraged. That, well, what's the point of my age?
No, no, no, I don't think so. I think it's just that the AARP was telling the politicians what to do, and so they did it. They weren't even messing with it. And that was a huge life lesson. And I learned for me in my life, I don't need to spend my time doing that. At least practicing medicine is honorable. And so I shifted just back to practicing medicine.
You can't avoid your destiny. Well, yeah, right. You really can't. If you asked me... You can kick and scream about it. You're going in that direction. I wanted to fix the healthcare system. I mean, that was my childhood dream. Yeah, why? What do you mean childhood? How early? First of all, my dad was a doctor. I was raised to be a doctor.
I always knew I would be a doctor, but the system was so dysfunctional that I think I just always wanted to make it better. There are things that are wonderful. The doctor-patient relationship with a caring doctor and a patient that they know with modern medicine could be beautiful, could be amazing. You have a smart advocate who's on your side. That part's amazing.
actual practice of medicine is terrible. That's why so many good doctors go on free mission trips. They donate their time and their money to practice medicine in third world countries so they can actually do some good. I mean, it's a beautiful thing to be a doctor. That's the truth. But the practice of medicine in America, and probably Canada as well, is, you know, it's not great.
So I've always known that.
So I'll tell you exactly the moment it started changing. I learned this in my health policy law class from Professor Hank Greeley in health law and policy at Stanford. Lyndon Johnson Medicare Act of 1965, the preamble paragraph says, nothing in this Medicare Act should be construed to interfere with the practice of medicine.
That's why they put that preamble there to begin with. Nothing in this should... Everything came from interfering with the doctor-patient relationship. Everything. There's intermediaries. There is no more doctor-patient relationship for most patients. It's a big insurance company right in the middle or a big hospital corporation right in the middle.
What's happening in your country, we could talk about for days.
It couldn't be worse.
Showing 181–200 of 456 · page 10 of 23
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