New Steps for an Old Dance: Reclaiming the Public Good in 2026

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It has been awhile. 

What I had hoped to do in 2025:   posting weekly….then bi-monthly…..then monthly…is not what I had the inner strength to sustain.  Simply put:  I was overwhelmed. Since January, every day there has been some change spearheaded by the Executive Branch that has been more shocking than the day before.  I wanted to look away, but found myself scouring various platforms on policy changes that were announced.  By late spring and summer, I was exhausted.

The policy changes and filed lawsuits threatening so much that I hold dear, was just too much to keep pace with–especially as one juggling motherhood, hustling for business, building a network.  Something had to give.

A lot has given since I last posted 6 months ago.  But on this last day of 2025, I felt the need to write something, albeit informal and not necessarily a policy analysis.

There are much smarter and better writers than me that can provide a policy year in review.  So I will not do that.

I will focus on the personal issue that has been a huge barrier in my life, and a professional one at the heart of my program goals:  access to quality affordable healthcare.  There have been few instances in my adult life when I have had health insurance.  And when I did, I rarely had anywhere where I could use it effectively–war torn countries do not have very good health systems.   Often, RnR was spent actually decompressing, and not, looking to get myself a doctor’s appointment.  This last year did not provide me with the stability I thought I would have by moving home and exiting humanitarian aid work. In fact, it felt just as chaotic as when you first hit the ground in crisis—many moving parts, with many voices trying to take the lead with not much time for transparency and explanation. The frenetic crisis fog of humanitarian work followed me up into the government shutdown. Political priorities weighed more than the actual welfare of the people.    

I had a glimmer of hope that our politicians would put the welfare of our nation over theatrics of  fighting for the people with healthcare access as an issue that could anchor all of us regardless of political views.  But it appears these “fights” have had the main purpose to be packaged for campaign trails in any future elections.  Fighting for the people:  It looks like that is what is happening, but it doesn’t really feel like it.  

The Affordable Care Act (ACA)  has provided many people with access to healthcare.  Is it perfect? Absolutely not.  Was it a start to taking control and power away from health insurance companies?  I think it was. The fact that the ACA was originally a conservative framework—prohibiting denials for pre-existing conditions, subsidies for low-income earners, and a mandate for everyone to buy insurance—-that is now being dismantled by conservatives, is frustrating.

Now more than ever many people—low income, working class, middle class, small business owners, part time workers, freelance/gig workers—will need subsidized health insurance.  The markers of our current reality point to a coming storm of confusion:  

• some slowing growth

• wage stagnation 

• softening labor market 

• high inflation concerns 

• volatile markets 

• tightening credit 

• subdued consumer confidence 

• high consumer debt 

• stock market up (but who is the winner with that??)

• unemployment 

Consequently, we will see more and more people fall into one of two categories, neither one good:  no health insurance and vulnerable to any labor conditions so that they can get some money to meet basic needs and pay for health access if needed;  or they can be tied to jobs that have poor salaries and/or labor conditions because they fear losing their health insurance.  And of course there will be a spike in emergency care which will lead to higher premiums for those who are paying for health insurance, taking our health care system back to the 1980s where costs were out of control and most likely motivated conservatives to become the architects of the now ACA.  

Why are we dancing in circles every 20 years? Because humans are stupid and we love to repeat history but with different makeup and shoes.  We think dressing up old failures in new trends will solve our problems. But it does not.

We dance this dance because some of us American  humans love money and feel we need to have as much of it as possible.  In a nutshell, when we look at how our health system is set up—primarily favors employer based health insurance, we can see the direct ties to capitalist greed.  Anytime you privatize a public good this greed will be seen.  Corporations and insurers are driven by profits through high premiums, stock buybacks and market consolidation.  There are no moments of pause to consider the preservation of public health and how it is available and accessible.  It is precisely a tool for labor control and is a system that has turned treating basic needs into a commodity that is changed, manipulated and eliminated at the whims of corporate entities who seek the bottom line. 

We all know this.  But here in Florida, there is still the sentiment “Well we can’t just give people health care for free. Someone has to pay for it. We are not socialists.” 

First, let us be clear. I’ve spoken to a number of my Good Neighbors in Florida who seem to think socialism=fascism.  It is not.  Our economy is a mixed economy with components of socialism already built in.  Perhaps many of my  Good Neighbors need a reminder of the tools we already use every day. Namely, capitalism gives us private businesses, competition, and profit-seeking which fuels tax revenue and innovation.  Socialism provides our safety nets like regulations, public schools, unive

Characteristics of Mixed Economies

rsal healthcare, and social security which in turn is fueled by tax revenue.  Fascism has nothing to do with economics: it can be found in a  capitalist country or a socialist country or a communist country, or mix. of all three.  That is an ideology that takes away rights for many people by one or a small group of people.

Second, yes somebody has to pay for our healthcare! How about the corporations?!?!  That is not socialism, it would be making those who have been profiting the most from the current system accountable to those who have not even come close to benefiting.

It has been the year of “Move fast and break things,” by individuals who were supposed to be caring for the health of the nation.   What to do? Why don’t We the People do the same, since the system is being broken from the top down, perhaps we should break it from the bottom up.

If you are a doctor:  stop accepting health insurance…all forms of it (not just Marketplace insurance  like here in Florida) and provide reasonable self-pay price points. If you are a patient:  Do not use health insurance, even if it is offered by an employer. Both doctor and patient:  we need to restore the direct relationship between us.  Dr. Leherfeld was my doctor from age 6 to 26.  Today, I have a wonderful APRN, but my actual primary doctor, I do not even know what she looks like outside of her website picture.  I have NEVER met her.

We the People can force the system to recalibrate to serve our needs and not the other way around.

Simple, yes?  Why can’t it be that simple???  Because it would take courage and conviction for us to have a unified front.   We would have to stop loving money. We would have to think communally and not “me and my own.” So it makes our healthcare system complicated to fix.

I will not end on a depressive note as we move into 2026.  Because I do have hope, you must when new steps are added to  the dance.  We just need to be patient and watch how new dancers would like to take the lead.

Zohran Mamdani being elected is a good sign that this dance of change is coming.  People are tired of the way capitalism has left so many behind that many Americans cannot even enjoy basic aspects of living in our country.  We also have (to name a few) Bernie Sanders and Robert Reich who have not stopped the good fight all these many years.  While Ilhan Omar and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor continue to push for socialist alternatives.

We have allowed the capitalist side of our economy to dominate our health system for much too long.  Perhaps we can reclaim this public good with a bit more socialism.

If we do, we may all be healthier and happier, thus more productive and ….wait for it…..wealthier….all of us, not just the few.

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