"I Would Love to Work Myself Out of a Job": Talking Healthcare With "Sick Note" Author Libby Watson

Ferrell, Scott J, photographer. Medicare/Medicaid rally in front of U.S. Capitol, showing protesters holding signs, disability activist Justin Dart and others, around a "trojan horse" figure representing the Democrats' interpretation of the Republican Medicare plan. Washington D.C, 1995. [29 Sept]

The Covid-19 pandemic caused the U.S. government to declare a “public health emergency.” The emergency declaration grants millions of Americans access to benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. It was last renewed on April 12, and, unless renewed again, it will expire in July. The healthcare implications, in particular, are massive. The Urban Institute estimates that 15 million Americans will lose their healthcare when the emergency declaration expires.

Among those millions will be many fuck-ups. In the second installment of The AP interview series (following my conversation with Alex Yablon), I spoke with my friend Libby Watson, author of the essential healthcare newsletter Sick Note, about the looming Medicaid crisis, and why, as she memorably wrote in March, “Healthcare Is for fuck-ups too.” 

[A lightly edited transcript of our conversation will be forthcoming for those subscribers that (like me) prefer reading things to listening to them.]