“We are at a tipping point:” Yale historian Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale and a world renowned scholar of authoritarianism. His 2017 international bestseller, On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century, is a roadmap to how autocrats rise and democracies fall. Snyder’s newest book is Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary. He describes his near death experience following a missed medical diagnosis last year, and he eviscerates America’s failed coronavirus response. He calls on us to rethink the fundamental connection between health and freedom. “Other countries look at us and for the first time ever, they sincerely pity us, but also wonder, how can you have so much wealth… and kill so many people?” He observes, “We’re at a tipping point. To say that it can’t go on like this is an understatement. Things could get much worse than they are — and they might.” He notes that if Joe Biden is elected president, he will have to undertake “a redo of the 21st century.”

Timothy Snyder, Levin Professor of History, Yale University, author, On Tyranny and Our Malady

Single payer health care in Vt: What went wrong and what’s next?

What’s next for single payer health care in Vermont? Dr. Deb Richter, a family medicine physician in Montpelier, Vermont, is a former President of Physicians for a National Health Program. For two decades, Richter has been a leading national and local advocate for single payer health care. When Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the health care bill in 2011, he praised Richter as a leading mover behind the reform effort. Richter discusses her new initiative: enacting publicly-funded universal primary care in Vermont. She also talks about her work with people with addictions, and her reflections on dealing with loss after the death of her son. (January 4, 2017 broadcast)

Dr. Deb Richter, physician and single payer health care advocate

Staying alive in avalanche country; The future of health care reform in Vermont

Surviving in Avalanche Country: In the aftermath of the death of two US Ski Team members in an avalanche in Austria this week (including 20 year old Burke Mountain Academy graduate Ronnie Berlack), there is renewed interest in the science and art of staying alive in avalanche country. We speak with the journalists behind The Human Factor, Powder Magazine’s new groundbreaking 5-part series on surviving avalanches:

John Stifter, editor, Powder Magazine, who survived an avalanche in 2012 that killed three friends

David Page, author, The Human Factor, Powder Magazine

Health Care Reform in Vermont After Single Payer: What’s next for health care reform in Vermont now that single payer has been abandoned? Four experts weigh in:

Rep. Bill Lippert, chair, House Health Care Committe

Neal Goswami, Vermont News Bureau Chief

Dan Barlow, VBSR public policy manager

Bram Kleppner, CEO, Danforth Pewter, and supporter of single payer