July 12, 2009

Broadcast Date: 
Jul 12 2009

Rep. Jerry Nadler on the outlook for passage of effective health care reform; a contest of wills over Israel's settlement policies; plus the director of Yoo Hoo Mrs. Goldberg, a documentary about path-breaking radio and television star Gertrude Berg.

Episode segments
  • Health Care Reform in our lifetimes?
    National Politics, Domestic Policy
    Congressmember Jerrold Nadler is a Democrat from Mahattan and a long-time supporter of a single payer plan for health care reform.  As a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus he has been actively involved in the drafting of Health Care Reform legislation in the House.
    Esther Kaplan

     As committees in the House and the Senate wrestle with the details of legislation to reform health care, 50 million Americans are uninsured (and the number keeps climbing) and millions more have inadequate coverage (most bankruptcies are due to health care costs and in most cases the parties actually have insurance but can't cover co-pays, deductibles and/or have exceeded their coverage limits).  Congressman Jerrold Nadler talks with us about his assessment of the prospects for meaningful health care reform including a single payer plan (not enough support in Congress),  and a robust public health care option designed along the lines of Medicare (still possible but facing strong resistance from Republicans, some more conservative Democrats and from for-profit interests). 

     

     

     

  • The Obama Administration Presses for a Settlement Freeze
    Israel/Palestine, Occupation
    Geoffrey Aronson is the Director of Research and Publications and is the Editor of the Foundation for Middle East Peace's bimonthly Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories.
    Esther Kaplan

    Since the 1967 war, and despite international condemnation (including by most U.S. administrations), Israel has continued to colonize the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  (Today, some 500,000 Israelis live in these areas.)  We talk with Geoffrey Aronson of the Foundation for Middle East Peace about how seriously to take the Obama administration's diplomatic efforts to achieve an unequivocal settlement freeze, how likely such efforts are to succeed and whether a freeze will be a precursor to the kind of settlement evacuation needed for a viable Palestinian state to emerge.

     

     

  • Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg
    Film, Arts & Culture
    Aviva Kempner is the writer, producer and director of Yoo-Hoo Mrs Goldberg.  Her previous film was The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.
    Esther Kaplan

    We talk with filmmaker Aviva Kempner about her documentary, Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg,  which is currently screening at the Lincoln Plaza and Quad theaters in Manhatten.  Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg tells the remarkable story of Gertrude Berg, the creator and star of The Goldbergs, which was first broadcast on radio in 1929, and then moved to television in 1949 where it became America's first sitcom.