[captioning made possible by democracy now!] ♪ from new york, this is democracy now. todayerestingly enough, is the anniversary of medicare. 54 years ago under lyndon johnson and a democratic congress, they brought a new program in. please don't tell me that in a four year period we cannot go from 55 to 45 to 35. this is not radical.

amy: as democratic presidential candidates debate overhauling the nation's heathcare, we look back to 1965 when lyndon johnson signed into law the bill that led to medicare and medicaid despite massive pushback from the healthcare industry. then we will look at the rapid melting of greenland ice sheet and what it means for the rest , of the earth. lost 160y alone at bibillion n tons of ice. ththat is roroughly thee equivat of 64 million olympic-sized swimming pools. amy: but first, we will go to dallas to look at the tragic death of tony timpa, a mentally ill man who died in 2016 after calling 911 for help. shocking new police body-cam video has just come out. dallas pololice officers shackld him and laughed as he died.

>> help me! >> get on the ground. >> you are going to kill me! amy: all of that and more, coming up. to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the senate has sent president trump a two-year budget that would increase both domestic and military spending by raising the debt ceilingng and rolling back spending caps. trump has promised to sign the deal, which would increase government spending by $320 billion over the next two years, with the pentagon set to receive a staggering $738 billion for the coming fiscal year. according to the national priorities project, the u.s. spends more on its military than 144 other countries combined. the trump administration has formally ended u.s. participation in the intermediate range missile

forces treaty. ronald reagan and mcmckay will gorbachev signed the treaty in 1987 to ban all nuclear and nonnuclear missiles with short and medidium ranges. president trump'p's withdrawal s sparked fears of a new nuclear arms race. president trump on thursday ratcheted up the us trade war with china, saying he'll impose a further 10% tariff on $300 ,illion in chinese goods including clothing and iphones. the u.s. has already slapped a 25% levy on $2$250 billion of chinesese goods,s, prompting reciprocal tariffs on us products. economists have refuted trump's claims that china will bear the econonomic brunt of incrcreased tariffs, s saying u.s. consusums willll in fact suffer the most.. puerto rican legislators have delayed a vote to confirm outgoing governor ricardo rossello's possible successor.

rossello, who has promised to today wasat 5:00 p.m. , forced to resign last week amid massive protests across puerto rico calling for his ouster. rossello had nominated attorney pedro pierluisi as secretary of state, which would make him next in line to replace rossello. but during a special session thursday, puerto rican legislators decided to postpone debate on pierluisi's confnfirmation untntil next wee his law firm represents promesa, board.lected control a number site a conflict of interest. line, puerto rico's justice secretary, wanda vasquez would likely take office. in recent days, there have been protests demanding vazquez's resignation. she announced via twitter that she would not step down and

would assume the responsibility imposed by the constitution and the law to replace rossello. a warning to listeners and viewers: this story contains disturbing footage. in texas, newly revealed police body-cam video shows dallas police officers laughing and joking as an unarmed man having a mental health crisis lay dying in their custody. the incident occurred in august 2016, after 32-year-old dallas resident tony timpa called 911 resident tony timpa called 911 for help, reporting he had taken drugs and was off his medication for schizophrenia. the video shows officers pinning timpa face-first into to the ground for 14 minutes as he pleaded to be releasesed. after timpa became unresponsive, the officers stood over r his unmoving body, mockiking him as though he had fallen asleep. >> wake up.

[laughter] >> first day, can't relate. him, ithey are saying to is the first day of school, cannot be late. at no time during the 14 minutes they had timpa restrained on the ground did the officers check to see if he was breathing or had a pulse. by the time paramedics arrived on the scene and began administerining cpr, timpa was dead. the video directly contradicts claims made by the dallas police department defending the officers' behavior. after headlines, we'll go to dallas to speak with a lawyer representing timpa's family. in yemen, dozens of people were killed thursday in two separate attacks in the southern port city of aden. in the first attack, suicide bombers targeted a police station, killing 11 people. the self-proclaimed islamic state's affiliate in yemen later claimed responsibility. later, in a separate attack, houthi rebels fired a missile into a military parade, killing at least 40 government troop's. the aid group save the children says the u.s.-backed, saudi-led war in yemen has sparked a food crisis that's led as many as 85,000 children to starve to death since fighting began in 2015.

in sudan, soldiers opened fire with live bullets on a crowd of peaceful protesters thursday, killing four people in the latest bloody assault on pro-democracy activists. the attack came as thousands of demonstrators heeded the call for a million man march to protest previous police killings, including a massacre of up to 130 people in june and the killing of four school children earlier this week. the latest killings came as opposition leaders met with sudan's military leaders for talks aimed at finalizing a power-sharing deal that would see a civilian government elected in 2022. rwanda has opened its border with the democratic republic of congo, after a brief closurere that follolowed the third death a patient with the ebola virus in the conongolese border city f goma. since the latest outbreak began exactly one year ago, the world health organization says at least 2,700 people have been infected with ebola, with more than 1,800 deaths. the washington post reports the

trump administration is nearing a deal with the taliban to withdraw thousands of troops from afghahanistan in exchange r a cease-fire. the agreement would also reportedly see the taliban were announced its support for al qaeda. the u.s. will reduce the number of troops in afghanistan to roughly 9000. this comes as the state department is reportedly slashing its presence at the u.s. embassy in afghanistan with cuts to half of the personnel. the world meteorological organization said july was the warmest month in recorded human history, following the hottest june on record. w waves have put 2019 on track to be one of the hottest years ever measured. ththe current record holdersrs - by rank k - 2016, 2015, 2017 and 2018.

meanwhile, a new study finds even modest shifts in government subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewables could lead to a dramatic drop in greenhouse gas emissions. the international l institute fr sustainable development says governments spend some 372 billion dollars each year subsidizing coal, oil, and gas. if as little as 10% of that money was invested in wind, solar and other renewables, cocountries could see a nearly 0 percent drop in carbon dioxide pollution. later we will talk about what is happening in greenland. 13 of president judges -- are texas supreme court justice jeffrey brown and texas attorney brantley starr. both are hostile to immigrant rights, reproductive freedom, voting

rights and lgbtq equality. the leadership conference on civil and human rights said in a statement, "senate republicans will stop at nothing to stack the courts with partisan judges who will push their radical agenda through at any cost. in doing so, they are not only degrading our courts, but also endangering our democracy." a federal judge has temporarily blocked a new york law that would allow the house ways and means committee to obtain president trump's state income tax returns. judge carl nichols, a trump appointee to the federal district court in washington, d.c., said thursday the injunction will remain in effect while trump's lawsuit challenging the law p proceeds. the court will hear arguments august 20 5 -- 29th. democrats say they need to see trump's tax returns to investstigate any potential conflicts of interest or self-dealing related to trump's sprawling business empirire. on capitol hill, senators grove leaderss of the fefederal a avin administration amid reports they wednesday failed to ground boeing 737 max passenger jets, even though they knew about software flaws that led to a pair of deadly crashes. this is rhode island's jack

reed, the ranking democrat on the senate transportation subcommittee, addressing ali bahrami, the faa's head of aviation safety office. >> the faa, at leads back to you. they are basically going to be the entity that stands up and says this aircraft is completely safe to fly, no further corrections are necessary, or they are being undertaken. but does not appear to be the case in this situation. amy: on thursday, , the mother d brother of 24-year-old samya stumo, who died in the crash of ethiopian airlrlines flight 302n march,h, held a protest outside the faa headquarters demanding justice. the crash of the 737 max plane, which killed stumo and 156 others, came just months after 189 people perished when lion air flight 610 crashed minutes after takeoff. samya stumo's mother, nadia milleron, questioned whyaaaa safety chief ali bahrami didn't ground 737 max jets after the

first crash, even though the faa knew another malfunction was likely. >> why did he let those planenes go back in the air? so boeing could make money. that is the only reason. he is the safety commissioner and exposed the public to an unacceptable risk which he used in the words of his testimony. amy: to see our interviews with , you can see democracynow. org. the trump administration sub rated or than 900 children from their parents at the u.s.-mexico border since a san diego federal judge ordered a halt to the practice last summer. that's according to the american civil liberties union in a court filing tuesday, which claims the federal government is abusing its discretion to determine what makes a parent unfit. in his motion, aclu attorney lee gelernt said "this issue has

reached a critical juncture. hundreds of children, some literally just babies, are being irreparably damaged because their parent may have committed a minor offense in the past,t, even a traffic offense." in mexico, a salvadoran migrant was shot to death in frontnt of his 8-year-old daughter by mexican police in the northern border state of coahuila on wednesday night. according to witnesses, the father and his daughter, along with at least eight others were , waiting for a train to continue their journey to apply for asylum in the united states, when mexican immigration agents and federal police raided the group and started shooting. agents also separated a 2-year-old toddler from their mother, according a local migrant shelter. in a statement the shelter says, "the persecution of migrants in mexico has reached an unsustainable extreme. we demand an end to this institutional cruelty, which is taking lives and leaving children orphaned as well as separating families and causing so much suffering provoked by the mexican state." in texas, congressmember will

hurd said thursday he will not seek reelection in 2020. hurd is the only black republican in the house of representatives. last month he was one of just , four house republicans to vote in favor of a resolution condemning president trump's racist attacks on four freshmen congresswomen of color. e public, revealing then-california governor and future president ronald reagan calling african people "monkeys" as president nixon laughed in agreement. in the recorded phone call, reagan is heard using the racist slur about african delegates to the united nations who voted to seat representatives from the people's republic of china rather than the u.s.-backed government-in-exile in taiwan. >> last night, to watch that thing on television, to see those monkeys from those african countries -- >> [laughter] >> uncomfortable wearing shoes.

amy: in other taped phone calls rerecorded the same day, presidt nixon is twice heard referring to african delegates as "cannibals." the national archihives released paparts of the tapaped conversas inin 2000, but edited out racist portions allegedly to protect , rereagan's privacy. under a courorder, the tapes shld have been madpublic b 2013, t only eered the public dain two eks ago. and thosare somef the headlis. this is mocracy w, decracynowrg, the r and peaceeport. i'm amy odman. we beginoday's show lking at timpa.ceath of ny 201 the of -year-oldallas m called 911 tosk for hp. during t call, tpa said s scarednd told e dispatcher that he suffered schizophrenia and depression but was off his medication for schizophrenia. the police responded and within 20 minutes tony timpa was dead. ,for the past three years, the

city of dallas has fought efforts to release police bodycam footage showing what happened but the video was , finally released this week after a prolonged legal battle. the shocking video contains disturbing footage. when officers arrived on the scene they found timpa was , already handcuffed by a private security guard. repeatedlyo, timpa pleaded for his life. >> help me. >> get on the ground. >> you are going to kill me. you are goining kill me. amy: the video shows officers then pinning timpa face-first into to the ground, with one of them jamming a knee into timpa's back and pressing down hard. the officers s swap handcuffsfsd a's feet together. timpa is heard pleading "will

you let me go, please?" after timpa became unresponsive, the officers stood over his unmoving body, mocking him as though he had fallen asleep. >> wake up. >> got to gogo to schchool. [laughterer] >> first day, can't be late. >> got to go to school. >> need breakfast, waffles. >> rudy tutti-frutti waffles. i think hehe is out cold now. he just got quiet. all of a sudden. >> here he comes. amy: the dallas police officers keep tony timpa restrained d the grounund. they do not check to see if he

was breathing or even has a pulse. i think -- >> he didn't just die down there, did he? >> i don't think he did. >> is he breathing? hope i didn't kill him. amy: the video then shows police taking him to an ambulance where a paramedic requires him dead. contradictsrectly claims made by the dallas police officers -- police department defending the officers' , behavior. we go now to dallas where we are joined by geoff henley, a lawyer representing the timpa family. thank you so much for joining us. what this video, how you got a hold of this video? this happened three years ago. what exactly it shows.

geoff: thank you for having me. this story began t three yearsrs ago, as you are indicating. we actualllly, our law firmm had sought a public information request and they were declined. we eventually filed a writ of mandamus because the city violated the freedom of information act statutes in texas. ultimately, they did produce the predicatetedbut is onon a confidentiality order and contemporaneous with that, we filed our federal civil rights lawsuit on behahalf of the famiy as we begagan to unearth m more details. the video itself has been under wraps since, as you have indicated, this week, and was released solely because criminal actions against the three

vasquez, andardrd, sergeant manseau were dismissed a few months ago by the district attorney. there being no pending criminal action, judge david godby determined there is no basis to keep this matter a secret anymore. indeed, he found quite thehe contrary and said there is a compelling public purpose for the e people to ascertrtain what happeneded b between one man anw enforcement. as you have indicated, the video itself is horrific. minutes, dillard has his knee lodged directly in tony's back. tony's face is mashed into the ground. his words become increasingly garbled as he is unablble to brbreathe, and as his b blood h his heartree acidotic,c,

begins to race. as you indicated in your broadcast, one of the things that is absolutely troubled me wasmost is that tony timpa handcuffed by private security guards before the dallas police officers arrived. he t thought there wasas no neeo switchch the handcuffs thahat ty emplployed. why was that significant? number one, the idea that they removeved his handcuffs in t the first placee tells you something extremely important under federal civil rights law, he was not t a threat. p prolonging the heiod o of restraint and when would have his diaphragm smothered and his face smasashed into t the ground, these were critical moments that resulted in t the death and were neneedly prolonged by the officers.

amy: he was handcuffed by security guards. the police came and turk the hahand -- tookok the handcuffs f and put their own and tied his feet. geoff: they tieded him with last exit ties. -- plastic zip ties. , one of camera video the officers depicts the handcuffs being switched and you can hear them commenting on the difficulty they are hahaving switching the ndndcuffs. therere was nono need to removee handcuffs in the first place and it is further evidence that tony threat.d not present a amy: these three officers would ultimately be charged. what were they charged with andd why were the chaharges dropped? geoff: the dallas county grand jury handed down indictments f r

threree of the officicers for te charge of deadly conduct. it is a class a misdemeanor that a maximumpenalty of of one year in the couounty j jl and up to a $4000 fine. ththey were indidicted by a dals countyty grand jury and abououta year and a half later, the district attorney dismissed the case. what was so troubling for the familyly is s it created signift expepectations that they were going to get jtitice in ththe criminal courts. compounding the problem is anytime you have criminal prosecution, typically the defendants seek a stay of the parallel civil action previously filed. filed our own, we lawsuit t on behalf of the famiy back in 2 2016 and our case gogt stuck in a block of ice dururing

the pendndency of e e criminal action. not only was the body camera footage under wraps, but our civil action was frozen. amy: i want to go back to that day. tony had called police himself saying he was struggling off of taking his medication. he asked them for r help when ty came. they --see not only do is it essentially hog tying? they shackle his hands and feet and restrain him, putting their knee into his back on the ground for 14 minutes? they then mock him. geoff: it is certainly the functional equivalent of a hog tie and is probably more severe because o of the knee in the ba. what the autopsy reveals his photographs of severe

hemomorrhaging i in his uppeper what the autopsysyscapular regiy significant pool of blood that pools at the very top in the area where the knee was placed. -- theave got to waitt weight o of a single officer between 160 and 180 pounds being driven into this man on the side of t the road. you have another officer on his left shoulder, periodically pressing him down, not as coconsistently as dillarard wasr in excess of 14 minutes. then as yoyou have indicated, hs ankles werere zip tied with nyln zips and his legs were sometimes elevated.. it would be virtually impossible for somebody who is on cocaine and in mental crisis to effectively breathe. are sayings it they to him as they mock him and

laugh on top of h him, saying we up? geoff: the ridicule actually even began before yourur tape. has s seennsell off-camera m making cracks about tony's relative wealth. he purposely mispronounced as "m"mercedes," and takes shots at ties or yacht club membership. it is not a yacht club, more of a boat club i in texas. we do not really have yachts. that sort of begins this s sortf gallows humor. a a few minutes later when you e talking, they are making t this phony or fallacious notion that he is asleep and they act as though, yoyou are going to be le

for school, tony, it is your mom. wake up. we have got you some new shoes e tutti fruityooti waffles. amy: he is dying. geoff: obviously i am not a path i'll just, but he is completely butponsor -- pathologist, he is completely unresponsive. despite claims of snoring, you do not hear snsnoring. you see reddish purple skin and to thatin the lead up lack of complete responsiveness, begins to become increreasingly incoherent. it is like his tongue has swollen or he is becoming more disoriented. duringng that process, it is kid of a garbled mumble. then the o officers s take a sht that and begin to mimic that sound where you hehear that noi.

it is despicable. amy: what is administered to him? who is giving him a shot? geoff: the paramedics actually administer belatedly a known sedative, and is d designed to lower a subject's heartrt rate. one of the conditions you are trying to avoid from respiratory distress is the heart begins to race so fast, fasteter than thee lungs can oxygenate, and the blood eventually becomes so you are trying to slow everything down. despite the fact that tony is not moving, inside his heart is working like overdrive. it is like a car that is redlining.

amy: if the police had come and come with the medics and the medic had given him that shot at the very beginning, what he be alive today? geoff: i am not an expert at anthology, but i fully believe -- path allergy, but i fully believe he would be -- pathology , but i fully believe he would be. amy: one of these officers served in afghanistan. did he go off to serve or did he served before? geoff: we were told he was deployed in afghanistan. i raised the i issue because the case had g gotten stayed once aa result of that deployment. there is an automaticc stay when anan officer is depeployed. it was represented to me by the city that he was deployed to afghanistan. of course, we want our first responders -- we do not want to

stand in the way of service to their country, but it was the first day. a couple of months right after he returned, the case got stayed again as a result of the criminal charges. amy: the sequence was, they killed tony timpa and then he went off to afghanistan and came back? geoff: yes. amy: what should officers do? were these officers trained? how do you deal with the mental health crisis, somebody who from the beginning said i am suffffering from a mental health crisis? geoff: this is an ongoing problem inin law enforcecement. , have representnted other folks and frankly lost cases that have been t thrown out, where deadly force was employed againstt somemebody in a mental cririsis. the judiciary for the last decade has been struggling with

this, , because everyone knows this creates horrific situationsns. the bottttom line is, cops are t the best medics and they are frequently not the best o or de-escalatee situations. in this particular case, of course, he should have been flipipped back ontnto his back. if you listen clclosely to the tape, officers do not complainn he wasas fighting aggressively. "squirm,"d the termrm that he was squiuirming. this is s while somebody is on your back. it is quite natural and easasy o antiticipate that t if you havea 160 to 180 pound man on your back, you are going to squirm. placing him on h his back, givig

him ththe drug, these are things that -- or popossibly even n wag him out a little bit. one of the things the ofofficers maintained a as they w were sang his l life by preventing him frm rolling into nearby mockingbird road or mockingbird lane. the e idea is that,, too, the rk of that -- i would not use the word "remote" but certainly unlikely. amy: what are you demanding in your lawsuit? you will be holding a nenews conference with tony's mother. geoff: we filed this lawsuit virtually almost three years ago , more than two and a half years ago, and it is a classic 1983 fourth amendment excessive force lawsuit. damageseeking monetary for tony's mother and son andnd

former wife. we are seeking a significant sum of money b because that is t the ononly thing that gets, not just the family justice, but gets civil actors to change t their coconduct. ununtil they s spend money on c claims,dnd makingg satitisfying claims, t they do't tend to spend mononey on the frt and to prevent t tragedies like this. you like anything else, have to hit them in the pocketbook to make them change their conduct. amy: we want to thank you very much for being with us. he is representing the timpa family. this is democracy now. when we come back, 54 years ago this week, president lyndon baines johnson signed off on medicare and medicaid. we will look at this as a top issue in the presidential

campaign right now. medicare for all. how did it getet past then and what will happen today? [music break] [♪] amamy: this is democracy now.

i am amy goodman. the democratic presidential candidates remain deeply divided on how to expand healthcare to the tens of millions of american who are uninsured or underinsured. senators bernie sanders and elizabeth warren have both pushed for abolishing private health insurance and establishing medicare for all. their rivals have pushed a number of different more incremental approaches. duringng tuesday's debate senatr elizabeth warren and former colorado governor john hickenlooper sparred on the best way forward. >> proposing a public option that allows some form of medicare that may be is a combination of medicare advantage and people choose it, and if enough people choose it, the costs come down and eventually it continues. it would be an evolution, not a revolution. experimenttried this with the insurance companies and what they have done is sucked billions of dollars out of our health care system and forced people to have to fight to try to get the health care coverage

their doctors and nurses say they need. why does eveve dock there, -- dr. and hospital have to figure out so many complicated forms? it gives insurance companies a chance to say no and push the cost back on the patient's. amy: during the debate senator , bernie sanders pointed out the country has taken sweeping action to expand health coverage to millions of americans before. >> interestingly enough, today is the anniversary of medicare. 54 years ago under lyndon johnson and a democratic congress, they founded one -- any program. after one year, one million elderly people. do not tell me we cannot go from 65 to 55 to 45 to 3535. this is not radical. ago let's go back 54 years this week, to 1965.

this is president clinton -- lyndon johnson signing medicare in 1965.on night -- joining him was harry truman. johnson: americans over the age of 65 have low income and are threatened by illness and medical expenses they cannot afford. through this new law, every citizen will be able in his productive years when he is earning, to ensure himself against the ravages of illness in his old age. this insurance will pay for care and hospitals and skilled nursing homes or in the home. under a separate plan, it will help meet the fees of the doctors. just think. because of this document in the long years of struggle which so

,any have put into creating it in this town and 1000 other towns like it, there are men and women in pain who will now find ease. amy: president lyndodon baines johnson, july 30, 1965. golden,to janet professor emerita at rutgers-camden and a historian of u.s. medicine. her recent piece in the philadelphia inquirer is headlined "happy birthday to medicare and medicaid." welcome. let's start by you telling us, what were the forces then working against medicare and medicaid? who are the forces working for itit? compare it to what we are seeing 54 years later. how did they get established? wendell: they have a long history. -- janet: they have a long

history. in the 1930's there was a push to extend health care. in 1935 in a push the social security act. there was a health insurance piece that was removed. harry truman, as you saw, pushed for health care beginning in 1945 and it took until 1965 when we finally got to medicare and medicaid. interestingly, the forces against it are the same ones we are hearing about from today, the people who stand to make money from health care, although in those days it was more the physicians than the medical establishment and insurance companies. the rhetoric was so wonderfully familiar, all about socialism and bankrupting america and all that choice would be taken away and health care would be rationed. the debates remain the same

although the partisans on each side have shifted, in part because our health care system has changed. medical education has gotten important and extensive and expensive. hospitals are sucking up a large part of our health care budget. saying, ill basically like the prophets as they are rofits as they are now. amy: how did it get through the senate and house? where the charges of socialism, being charged back then? how did it ultimately win? janet: it won because with the election of president johnson we had a broad coalition of democrats who worked to make this happen. basically, you had a mandate from the american p people ththh

their electoraral process to say yes, we need health c care, and the e forces were therere. the ama fought it extensively, and i hope you have that clip of former president reagan before he was presisident campaigning against it. amy: let's go to 1961, after ronald reagan who would become president of the united states, recorded an album entitled " ronald reagan speaks out against socialized menaces." >> what reason could people have backing a bill insisting we have compulsory health insurance for senior citizens regardless of age, regardless of whether they have an income, whether they are protected by their own savings. we could be excused for believing that this was simply an excuse to bring about what they wanted all the time,

socialized edison. -- medicine. we want no further encroachment on these liberties and freedoms and at the moment, the key issue is we do not want socialized medicine. amy: then he became president. who was he paid by? janet: the american medical association and other trade groups. amy: the american medical associatioion would go on to puh doctors in canada to fight against medicare for all, health and ifr all in canada, the contagion spreads north it would influence people in the united states. we are also o joined by wendell top insurancermer and --ve for cigna he's author of "deadly spin: an insurance company insider speaks out on how corporate pr is killing health care and

deceiving americans." back to whenthen medicare and medicaid was fought. it became one of the most popular programs in the united states, and then your own trajectory, what you were doing as a top executive at cigna and humana, what you were saying about medicare and medicaid. wendell: my first career, i was certainly saying, that't's privatatize medicare and see wht we can do to get as many people into private plans as we can. when i went to work for humana in 1989, they were selling private managed care plans in the medicare program. that has become a big cash cow for the insurance industry. what happened after the medicare program was enacted in 1965, we

kind of stopped. it was the intent to bring everyone into the medicare program eventually, but what happened instead was that we allowed private industry to create and construct what has become a root goldberg contraption that exists to make money for big corporations like the ones i used to work for. the reason we have ever increasing prices in this country is because all the players are working symbiotically. insurance companies cannot control health care costs, nor do they want to. i left my job in 2008 as head of corporate munication's at cigna -- communications at cigna after a crisis. what i was doing was making it necessary for people to go without insurance or not being able to go to the doctor because of high deductibles. it has only gotten worse since then, even after the enactment

of the affordable care act. the number of people without insurance is up and the number of people who are underinsured with health plans that are in adequate is skyrocketing. we are at a point in our history when we absolutely have to say, this is not working for anyone except big corporations and executives and shareholders. we need to do more than just tweak the affordable care act to get to a system that is more like other countries in the developed world. amy: as i was leaving today right before the broadcast, cnn was doing yet another piece. this one was how finland socialized medication system is failing. pointed out,s taking on some of these democratic contenders for president and cnn and how they frame this discussion.

he pointed out in a few minutes they would be running a pharmaceutical add. talk about how this is being framed today. wendell: it is being framed in the way i used to frame it myself at my old job, because i used to be part of the effort to get people to believe things that were not true about the system in canada or the u.k. i spent time developing relationships with reporters and producers at places like cnn to get them to talk about health care in a way we wanted them to talk and to ask questions and say things that simply were not true, or taken out of context would get people to believe things that were not an accurate trail of the health care -- portrayal of the health care system. i am apologizing to the american public for all the misleading i did to get people to think that

people wait a long time to get care in canada and other countries. it is simply not true. the insurance industry and its allies are spending enormous sums of money, more money -- if you have private insurance, you are spending money to pay for the propaganda campaigns -- the insurance companies, hospitals, and big companies have come together and are pulling money to create a partnershipip for america's s health care f futur. i used to be a part of efforts to work with these groups. people andto mislead to get the media to say t things and frame questions the way they want them to be frame. -- framed. trump want to t turn to spokeke at thee

federation o of amererican hosps 2019 annual meeting this year. >> medicare for all in reality is medicare for none. this isnsn'tt h hyperbole. as the administrator of one of the largest government run health care programs in n the woworld, i s see every day its shortcomings. it is true that our present system needs improvement, however doubling down on government a and mimicking thehe failed socialist health care systems of europe that ration and restrict care, where ofients face long periods time for care,e, is not the answer. amy: your response, wendell potter? wendell: she is using the same talking points the industry wants her to use. it is a continuation of what we hearard ronald reagan say 54 yes

ago longer. i would call these talking points ever gray and they trot them out to scare people whenever there is a threat to profits. it will not work this time because increasingly people are not spooked by terms like "socialized medicine." people are realizing they have been sold a bill of goods by the insurance industry. what we do in this country is care based on ability to pay. there are americans all over the country who do not get the care they need, not because we have a socialized system like another country, we don't, and even that turn is used purposely to scare people. we don't let people get the care they need because people don't have the money to get the care they need. in particular, we are talking about people who are called middle income individuals and families. they just simply in many cases

cannot affto ththey need bebecause in many c, they cannot afford insurance. the affordable care act did some good. it provides subsidies for those who have relatively low income. it does not do much of anything to protect people who have so-called middle income. question.e a quick we just have a few seconds, and we will continue this discussion in many months to come. when you were an insurance industry head of communications with humana and cigna, did you find the networks more receptive to you because you were pouring millions into advertising? wendell: no doubt about it. ds froml see a lot of a the insurance industry and drug companies. they are not going to

investigate an industry at pays them a lot of money, absolutely. amy: thank you so much for being with us, wendell potter. he served as head of communications at cigna. now president of the nonprofit organization -- a nonprofit organization. we will link to your piece in the philadelphia inquirer. in 30 seconds, we are back talking about greenland. july was the hottest month ever recorded. stay with us. break] [♪] the climateow in

and -- we are now in a climate and ecological cs what it is, n emergency. we must acknowledge we do not have the situation under control solutions mean we stop doing something. we must admit we are losing this battle. that theo acknowledge old considerations have fafaile. movement in their present form -- in their present forms have failed. homo sapiens have not yet failed. ♪ yes, we are failing. amy: music from the 1975 with gratitude very, the world-renowned 16-year-old swedish climate activist.

this is democracynow. i am amy goodman. in her latest investigation "waste only," return to the issue of greenland. the world meteorological -- julytion said july was the hottest month on recorded human history. joan thate heat recordsd all time heat over greenland, driving temperatures to as much as 30 feet -- - 30 degegrees fahrenhe. they lost the equivalent of 80 million swimming pools. writing in rolling stone in an warnse, a meteorologist greenland's eyes was supposed to melt at its fastest ever rate

recorded today, "more than 12 billion tons of water will permanently melt away from the ice sheet and find its way down to the ocean, irreversibly raising sea levels globalllly." wewell, for momore, we go nonowo copenhagen, denmark where we're joined by jason box, professor and ice climatologist at the geologic survey of denmark and greenland. jason box, welcome to democracy now! in these last minutes we have, can you layout what is happening in greenland? what it has to do with the climate crisis and the heatwave we have been experiencing around the world. jason: you mentioned this heat dome, this hot air parked over greenland. that same hermas started in the mass started- air in the hair -- sahara before it moved to europe. it drifted north, setting

records across scandinavia. in a bizarre circulation, it drifted to the west. normally the flow is to the opposite direction so this warm blob of air drifts over the ice sheet, and greenland was well temperatures,ice 34 weeks above normal. -- three to four weeks before normal. sheetarm air over the ice is a conspicuous example of how ice and climate change in the arctic have been steadily warming. we see an acceleration of loss from our canada, alaska, greenland. it has a lot of downstream effects. it is flooding the north atlantic with freshwater, disrupting ocean circulation in ways we do not appreciate.

part of our climate system which is getting unhinged as carbon continues to accumulate in the atmosphere. is a delayedect response to the enhanced greenhouse effect we are really just starting to see, as the climate system punches out of the noise of the last century, a very clear, steep rising temperature in the arctic that is affecting weather patterns around the hemisphere. now what is happening right , the extreme temperatures that are engulfing greenland, what will this s mean for the rest of the plananet? can you talk about the issue of climate refugees, the symptoms of the climate crisis, from food shortages to thousands of people

flee from regions affected by drought and water shortage throughout the world? the key factor for greenland and other land ice loss is sealevel rise. that will take decades to really be felt in earnest. between now and when we really , it isrge sealevel rise during high tide, storm surge, thermal expansion, events like superstorm sandy that flooded the new york subway that you get when you combine thermal expansion and high tide and storm surge. more immediate -- and i am glad you mentioned it -- the continents are heating up twice as fast as the global temperature just as the arctic is. the continents are drying.

this is undermining food security. we are seeing more drought and that will be a more immediate consequence of enhanced greenhouse effect. the migration of people that lose their food and water beingty, and that effect disrupted for political systems as these people seek a better livelihood, reluctantly leaving their homes and going elsewhere. i am convinced that will be a more immediate consequence of elevated greenhouse effect. sealevel rise is an urgent, huge issue which ultimately will force uncountable numbers of people to forfeit their land and coastal areas that we cannot justify or afford to build sea defenses. adde displaced people will

on top of food and drought refugees which we are seeing today. amy: thank you so much for being with us. i am amy goodman. jason box is our guest.