It seems healthcare – or the lack of it – is a hot topic these days. Whether it’s candidates advocating for single payer health care, and winning primary elections, or political appointees in The Department of Health and Human Services forcing out tens of thousands of agency employees; firing or replacing top leadership across the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; dismantling or heavily altering over a quarter of the scientific and public health advisory panels; cancelling billions of dollars of research grants, or funds to local health departments for tracking communicable diseases, mental health or addiction – with rapid spread of outbreaks such as measles, cyclospora or salmonella. One could go on and on in this vein.

Instead, I am delighted to share a conversation with retired physician, Dr. David King. For almost four decades he was a general practitioner in the small town of Belgrade, MT, which shares similarities with our Mendocino County communities – his patients were loggers, farmers and ranchers, small business owners and employees and families. His wife of many years, Daralee Schroeder, was a crew boss at the Plum Creek Lumber Mill.

He created numerous clinics, has been the medical director for nursing homes, hospice care, the geriatric team for the local hospital. Since retiring, he has been advocating for universal healthcare in the United States, He “says: We don’t have a health care system, We have a “health insurance system.”

We spoke with Dr. David King on August 10, 2026 via Zoom.

Some of the slides Dr. King mentioned in this conversation:

The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Single Payer Cost Estimates

Articles Pertinent to this conversation:

The legacy of Belgrade’s Dr. King https://www.belgrade-news.com/townnews/medicine/the-legacy-of-belgrades-dr-king/article_8781d97c-86df-11ed-92a7-87f003fef861.html

He Saw Specialist After Specialist. He Died When No One Gave Him a Flu Shot https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/opinion/medical-cures-trump-patients.html

Trump is laying waste to the agency that keeps hospital patients safe https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/07/trump-healthcare-hospital-quality-patient-safety

Trump’s vaccine order is about feelings, not facts https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/11/trumps-vaccine-order-is-about-feelings-not-facts

The U.S. Relies on Family Caregivers. Millions of Them Are Kids https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/magazine/child-family-caregivers-aacy.html

Tracking State Rural Health Transformation Plans https://kffhealthnews.org/rural-health/tracking-state-rural-health-transformation-plans/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Republicans Are Trying to Hide These Health Care Cuts https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/15/opinion/trump-health-care-cuts.html

‘We Must Pass Medicare for All,’ Says Troy Jackson as 12th Maine Maternity Unit Closes in 11 Years https://www.commondreams.org/news/maine-hospitals-closing

Rick Scott ‘oversaw the largest Medicare fraud’ in U.S. history, Florida Democratic Party says https://politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/