The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso

In May 2024, Vermont enacted entirely unprecedented legislation that attempts to mitigate climate-charged disaster events and associated financial fallout inflicted on Vermont residents.
Vermont climate superfund legislation, followed seven months later by New York (and presently pursued by at least ten other states), is in response to climate-charged disaster events that over the ten- yr period ending in ’25 cost Vermonters upwards of ~$2 billion. The legislation, premised on a deeply entrenched polluter pay principle, e.g., modeled after the federal toxic waste Superfund program, requires so called carbon majors, here oil and gas companies, to meet their unpaid, externalized costs by making compensatory payments. New York law is targeting a $75 billion fund. These dedicated funds will generally finance climate adaptation and infrastructure resiliency. Not surprisingly, these laws face of aggressive legal challenges by among others the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, West Virginia-led state attorneys general and the Trump administration that has filed federal lawsuits against both VT and NY. Among numerous related interviews, listeners will recall I discussed advances in attribution science with Stanford’s Chris Callahan in May 2025.
Information re: Vermont’s Climate Superfund Act is at: https://climatechange.vermont.gov/climate-superfund.
Information re: Vermont’s Conservation Law Foundation is at: https://www.clf.org/serving-new-england/vermont/.
(Apologies to Ms. Mihaly, at one point I call her Emily!?!)


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

During this podcast I read part two of a draft, yet-to-be-published essay titled, “Institutional Betrayal: HHS and the National Academy of Medicine’s Failure to Decarbonize the US healthcare Industry.” That the window formally closed in January 2025 means healthcare will not approach reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in 2030. HHS will continue to intentionally fund the industry’s harm-treat-harm business model meaning healthcare is by design traumatic. Iatrogenesis is built-in. Americans will become increasingly consumed by, not consumers of, healthcare.
Comments are of course welcomed.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

During this podcast I read part one of a draft, yet-to-be-published essay titled, “Institutional Betrayal: HHS and the National Academy of Medicine’s Failure to Decarbonize the US healthcare Industry.” That the window formally closed in January 2025 means healthcare will not approach reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in 2030. HHS will continue to intentionally fund the industry’s harm-treat-harm business model meaning healthcare is by design traumatic. Iatrogenesis is built-in. Americans will become increasingly consumed by, not consumers of, healthcare.
Comments are of course welcomed.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

This is the first of a two-part reading of a yet-to-be-published essay presently titled, “Institutional Failure: HHS and the National Academy of Medicine’s Failure to Decarbonize Healthcare.”
Comments are of course welcomed.
Thank you.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com

Unlike most rich countries or advanced economies the US does not define healthcare, including long term care, as a universal social risk – despite the fact we all get sick, no one knows their health status tomorrow, approximately 85% of Medicare beneficiaries have at least one chronic condition and life expectancy at birth is approximately 79 years. Medicare does not provide long term care, Social Security replaces just 43% of the average workers’ wages and only approximately 40% of retirees receive income from some form of employer or personal retirement plan.
With me to discuss Prof. Ghilarducci’s book is her colleague Ms. Jessica Forden an economics Ph.D. candidate at the New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
Information on Prof. Teresa Ghilarducci’s book is at: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo212888995.html.
The New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy (SCEPA) research publications are at: https://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/research.
Jessica Forden’s LinkedIn page is at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-forden-88b265131/.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com