If I ever run for city dog catcher, these are the platform issues that I'll run on. Bear with me. This is very much a work in progress...
- Elimination of the exception clause in the 13th Amendment. Yes, that's right, slavery still exists in the United States in 2023 thanks to the 13th amendment. You can read my thoughts about it here as well as on the I Taught The Law legal blog.
- A total ban on pharmaceutical advertising on billboards, magazines, TV, radio, & streaming services for prescription medication (just like happened for big tobacco). If you can't buy it legally, without a prescription, there's no valid reason for it to be advertised to the public. Most medicines would cost far less if the profits weren't continually plowed into marketing and ad spending. Even the American Medical Association thinks it’s a good idea.
- Universal healthcare. Single payer healthcare. Medicare For All. National Health Service. The name isn't the important part. What is important is that a no cost at the point of service healthcare service is delivered to every person in the United States. If every other civilized country can do it, then so can the US.
- Following that, all existing medical debt needs to be erased/eliminated.
- We all know the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 was one of the worst decisions in US history for democracy, allowing corporations and other outside groups (including foreigners) to spend unlimited money on influencing the outcome of elections. Here's the plan. It's got to go. Gone. Vamoose. Bye bye.
- Here’s something that shouldn’t need to be said, but a shareholder of a private corporation should never, ever, be put in the way of the sacred relationship between a doctor and patient, or a teacher and student. If private equity is to survive, it needs to assign those relationships in its incorporation documents over and above those of shareholder interests. We have 100+ years of really, really terrible MBA education (i.e. maximize profit for shareholders at all costs) to reverse.