Battleground Wisconsin - 2024 Election ignores climate & healthcare crisis

2024 Election ignores climate & healthcare crisis

10/25/24 • 54 min

Early voting is now underway, as Trump/Vance and Harris/Walz crisscross Wisconsin and the other battleground states. The first day of Wisconsin early voting saw record turnout of over 100,000 voters this Tuesday. What does it mean for the same day vote? We encourage our listeners to volunteer in Citizen Action’s final voter contact activities on phones and doors talking directly to targeted voters we need to win. Are you with us? In spite of two “thousand year event” hurricanes less than two weeks apart, and the warmest September on record, the climate change issue is the worst casualty of the 2024 election season. Are voters not interested, or are politicians refusing to talk about it? The second most ignored issue in the 2024 election is the current hospital and health system crisis ripping a hole in our health care safety net. We discuss how the hospital closure crisis in Eau Claire is also shocking the Madison hospital system, and the latest mega hospital chain merger of Marshfield Clinic Health System & Sanford Health. We close by welcoming Milwaukee Area Technical College educator Luz Sosa to discuss the discrimination Latinos are experiencing at MATC and how it connects to Act 10 and the gerrymandered Legislature’s chronic under funding of public education.

Previous Episode

19 days to make a difference

With less than 3 weekends left before this historic election, the presidential and U.S. senate race in Wisconsin is tied. What does it all mean? Early voting starts next Tuesday and we continue to encourage our listeners to get out and talk to voters on the doors and by phone to close the deal and overcome the toxic ads demonizing our immigrant and trans neighbors and friends. We also give our unsolicited advice on what Kamala Harris and Tammy Baldwin need to do to win in Wisconsin. We follow up on a recent Public Service Commission (PSC) public hearing where the PSC tried to ban the media from covering the hearing and the lousy representation of PSC members even attending the public hearing reveals utility capture and their utter failure to represent the public interest. We continue to sound the alarm bells about the need for hospital and health system regulation, as Ascension continues its downward spiral. The latest news is that Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers in Milwaukee has switched maternity hospitals from Ascension’s premier Milwaukee hospital to an Aurora hospital. Robert closes with hope that the Biden Administration will follow through the President’s threat this week to cut off Israeli military aid in 30 days if Gaza aid flow does not radically improve. Is Biden finally going to have some backbone?

Next Episode

What’s at stake

We discuss the final stretch of the voting phase of the 2024 election. It all comes down to people like our listeners talking to other voters and helping them make meaning of this election. Sign up to volunteer from home on phones or join us on the doors. We discuss yet another healthcare merger as minnows, Black River Memorial Hospital and the Krohn Clinic, merge in an effort to survive all the bigger fish in the pond. Marge Rogenbuck from Lincoln County, Wisconsin joins us to discuss conservative Board Members efforts to privatize the public county nursing home. Marge is a lifelong Lincoln County resident and had both her parents stay at Pine Crest. She tells us why she joined “People For Pine Crest” and is fighting back to protect a vital and excellent public institution in her community. We close with a very special guest, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. He is jointed by Milwaukee County Sustainability Director Grant Helle, and Citizen Action Climate Coordinator Kat Klawes, to discuss the incredible new federal investments making it possible for cities, counties, and school districts to address the climate change emergency. As you will see, climate change is on the ballot on November 5th!