August 28, 2025 • 7 mins
The state of Connecticut is considering establishing its own health services, including medical care, and potentially opting out of federal regulation. Will other states follow Connecticut's thought process?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now let's go to doctor Arthur Kaplan, professor of
bioethics at New York University Land Gone Medical Center. Of course,
he's with us every Thursday at this time. Good morning, doctor.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
How are you no menty stations?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, A couple of people have mentioned that.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I think it's a growing trend. It just may happen.
That'd be wonderful. There's so many things to talk about today.
Let's start with Connecticut. Connecticut now kind of leaving the
federal government to do things in their own or at
least thinking about it when it comes to health services.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So you've got basically the main public health agency, the CDC,
issuing recommendations that mainstream science groups and medical groups think
are wrong. Just out of think. They're saying one thing,
and then the American College of Pology and the American
(01:01):
Association of Pediatrics says something else. So Connecticut, and by
the way, New York and a couple of other New
England states are doing this too. Watching is saying we
got to set up our own shop. We have to
basically secede from federal control over medicine, start to make recommendations,
collect evidence, set out guidelines for new drugs approvals, vaccines, whatever,
(01:26):
on our own. So Yep, there is a movement and
I think you're going to see it to split away
from what traditionally has been a federal responsibility.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
There will be ramifications in that, right, especially in federal funding.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Huge ramifications. The federal government could certainly say, if you
don't follow what we're doing, it's going to mean more
funding cuts for research in your state. They could certainly say,
if you don't do what we're doing, some of the
legal protections that are there when you follow federal recommendations
won't be there. If something goes wrong. The state's going
(02:06):
to be responsible for that, if that's what they're going
to do. And you know, Larry, in a lot of
these areas, you really don't want, say, ten states with
ten guidelines telling people what to do. They'll just get confused.
Right in healthcare, what you really want is a unified,
agreed upon consensus message. It shouldn't matter if you cross
(02:29):
the border from Connecticut into New York State and go
to the CBS there and they say, oh, we don't
have that drug. It's not approved in New York. You
have to go over to over Island.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, doctor Kaplan. I know you're no fan of RFK Junior,
and we're going to get into a lot of topics
where you're going to have to talk about him before
we start. Is there something, Is there anything he's done
so far that you agree with?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Well, I don't like red dye number two. On the
other hand, if that's the big move to make food safer,
it's not going to make a big difference unless you're
eating a pound of red dye number two M and
MS every day. Not much, not much.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So you just don't like the guy across the board.
You didn't like him when he was nominated.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I haven't liked it for twenty years. Did that much
to do with Trump or politics? This guy has just
been you know, he did a nice job, Larry working
on the Hudson River. People may remember old timers, and
he was involved with trying to get it cleaned up,
and he did a good job. And then he got
hooked up and I don't know why, with this anti
(03:37):
vaccine movement. Then he got hooked up with kind of
the alternative movement in medicine. Again long ago. We're talking
ten fifteen years, and he's been promoting you know, don't
use seed oils, use this supplements. He's had a long
history of suing the vaccine companies like MRK and so on,
(03:59):
say they're lying about whether they cause autism. I just
don't think he's been a reliable source of scientific medical
information for years and years and years. So what I
think happened, Larry, You tell me this is political, But
I think he swung his support to Trump, gave him
(04:20):
a few percentage points from his you know, kind of
small presidential campaign, and Trump probably says, you helped me win.
So I think he got a political appointment.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, Well he didn't need to make him head of
Health and Human Services, even though he wanted that. He
still could have given a political appointment. So he must
have bought into to some of what he wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So you want to look one other kind word. Look,
he's been big on health prevention, trying to improve diet,
and that's great and I'm all for that. But that's
his hardest road in its political because if you want
to go after big agriculture making all the corn syrup
and growing all the corn, you want to go after
(05:05):
big food, growing all the meat and cattle and pork,
all the things that are we know are bad in
the American diet. They're all in the Red States. And
Congress may go along with a lot that Trump wants
or even Kennedy wants, but they are not going to
see their industries attacked. And they're already sending out signals
(05:27):
to Kennedy. I know this behind the scenes. Don't mess
around with our agriculture. So I don't think he's going
to get far on the most important thing where he
and I agree.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, he is not only skeptical on our food sources
and the food we eat, he's also very skeptical, skeptical
of the medicines we use and the vaccines we take.
And the problem with that, I think is that sometimes
these medicines save lives, and these vaccines save lives.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They do. And by the way, he's skeptical too about
our new generation, the weight loss injectables, the Manjaros and
the Wagobi's and all that stuff. He says, it's a
band aid. You know, we really want to fundamentally change
how we eat. I'm all for that. I think he's right,
but I'm not going to not use these shots to
(06:16):
get people's weight down or get their diabetes under control
right now, changing the food habits that we have. I
don't know what would that take? Ten years? Yeah? Years?
But also you can do it a long time.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
You can do both, can't you.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Doctor.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
You can lose the weight and then try to keep
it on right.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah. By the way, one other idea just floated yesterday
which I was laughing about. He said he wanted more
nutrition taught to kids who are pre meds in college. Well,
there isn't really a major pre meds in college where
everybody has an agreed upon curriculum. But I was laughing,
because where do you learn to eat from your doctor?
I doubt it. You learned to eat from your parents,
(06:58):
probably your mother. Yeah, I want to change nutrition. You know,
you got to get education into the high schools, at
junior high schools. It's not at the medical school. I
don't know about you, Larry, but the last time my
doctor told me something was good for me to eat,
it lasted in my head about a minute.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well that's another problem. Doctor Arthur Kaplan, Yes, professor of
Bioethics at New York University landgoing Medical Center with us
every Thursday at nine oh five. Thanks a lot, doctor,
good to talk to you
And now let's go to doctor Arthur Kaplan, professor of
bioethics at New York University Land Gone Medical Center. Of course,
he's with us every Thursday at this time. Good morning, doctor.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
How are you no menty stations?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, A couple of people have mentioned that.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I think it's a growing trend. It just may happen.
That'd be wonderful. There's so many things to talk about today.
Let's start with Connecticut. Connecticut now kind of leaving the
federal government to do things in their own or at
least thinking about it when it comes to health services.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So you've got basically the main public health agency, the CDC,
issuing recommendations that mainstream science groups and medical groups think
are wrong. Just out of think. They're saying one thing,
and then the American College of Pology and the American
(01:01):
Association of Pediatrics says something else. So Connecticut, and by
the way, New York and a couple of other New
England states are doing this too. Watching is saying we
got to set up our own shop. We have to
basically secede from federal control over medicine, start to make recommendations,
collect evidence, set out guidelines for new drugs approvals, vaccines, whatever,
(01:26):
on our own. So Yep, there is a movement and
I think you're going to see it to split away
from what traditionally has been a federal responsibility.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
There will be ramifications in that, right, especially in federal funding.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Huge ramifications. The federal government could certainly say, if you
don't follow what we're doing, it's going to mean more
funding cuts for research in your state. They could certainly say,
if you don't do what we're doing, some of the
legal protections that are there when you follow federal recommendations
won't be there. If something goes wrong. The state's going
(02:06):
to be responsible for that, if that's what they're going
to do. And you know, Larry, in a lot of
these areas, you really don't want, say, ten states with
ten guidelines telling people what to do. They'll just get confused.
Right in healthcare, what you really want is a unified,
agreed upon consensus message. It shouldn't matter if you cross
(02:29):
the border from Connecticut into New York State and go
to the CBS there and they say, oh, we don't
have that drug. It's not approved in New York. You
have to go over to over Island.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, doctor Kaplan. I know you're no fan of RFK Junior,
and we're going to get into a lot of topics
where you're going to have to talk about him before
we start. Is there something, Is there anything he's done
so far that you agree with?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Well, I don't like red dye number two. On the
other hand, if that's the big move to make food safer,
it's not going to make a big difference unless you're
eating a pound of red dye number two M and
MS every day. Not much, not much.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So you just don't like the guy across the board.
You didn't like him when he was nominated.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I haven't liked it for twenty years. Did that much
to do with Trump or politics? This guy has just
been you know, he did a nice job, Larry working
on the Hudson River. People may remember old timers, and
he was involved with trying to get it cleaned up,
and he did a good job. And then he got
hooked up and I don't know why, with this anti
(03:37):
vaccine movement. Then he got hooked up with kind of
the alternative movement in medicine. Again long ago. We're talking
ten fifteen years, and he's been promoting you know, don't
use seed oils, use this supplements. He's had a long
history of suing the vaccine companies like MRK and so on,
(03:59):
say they're lying about whether they cause autism. I just
don't think he's been a reliable source of scientific medical
information for years and years and years. So what I
think happened, Larry, You tell me this is political, But
I think he swung his support to Trump, gave him
(04:20):
a few percentage points from his you know, kind of
small presidential campaign, and Trump probably says, you helped me win.
So I think he got a political appointment.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, Well he didn't need to make him head of
Health and Human Services, even though he wanted that. He
still could have given a political appointment. So he must
have bought into to some of what he wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So you want to look one other kind word. Look,
he's been big on health prevention, trying to improve diet,
and that's great and I'm all for that. But that's
his hardest road in its political because if you want
to go after big agriculture making all the corn syrup
and growing all the corn, you want to go after
(05:05):
big food, growing all the meat and cattle and pork,
all the things that are we know are bad in
the American diet. They're all in the Red States. And
Congress may go along with a lot that Trump wants
or even Kennedy wants, but they are not going to
see their industries attacked. And they're already sending out signals
(05:27):
to Kennedy. I know this behind the scenes. Don't mess
around with our agriculture. So I don't think he's going
to get far on the most important thing where he
and I agree.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, he is not only skeptical on our food sources
and the food we eat, he's also very skeptical, skeptical
of the medicines we use and the vaccines we take.
And the problem with that, I think is that sometimes
these medicines save lives, and these vaccines save lives.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They do. And by the way, he's skeptical too about
our new generation, the weight loss injectables, the Manjaros and
the Wagobi's and all that stuff. He says, it's a
band aid. You know, we really want to fundamentally change
how we eat. I'm all for that. I think he's right,
but I'm not going to not use these shots to
(06:16):
get people's weight down or get their diabetes under control
right now, changing the food habits that we have. I
don't know what would that take? Ten years? Yeah? Years?
But also you can do it a long time.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
You can do both, can't you.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Doctor.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
You can lose the weight and then try to keep
it on right.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah. By the way, one other idea just floated yesterday
which I was laughing about. He said he wanted more
nutrition taught to kids who are pre meds in college. Well,
there isn't really a major pre meds in college where
everybody has an agreed upon curriculum. But I was laughing,
because where do you learn to eat from your doctor?
I doubt it. You learned to eat from your parents,
(06:58):
probably your mother. Yeah, I want to change nutrition. You know,
you got to get education into the high schools, at
junior high schools. It's not at the medical school. I
don't know about you, Larry, but the last time my
doctor told me something was good for me to eat,
it lasted in my head about a minute.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well that's another problem. Doctor Arthur Kaplan, Yes, professor of
Bioethics at New York University landgoing Medical Center with us
every Thursday at nine oh five. Thanks a lot, doctor,
good to talk to you
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