Pharmaceutical companies are enjoying unprecedented profits and

Host: The hospital cafeteria was nearly empty — the kind of silence that follows exhaustion. Fluorescent lights buzzed softly above, washing everything in a pale, sterile glow. Outside, ambulance sirens pulsed faintly through the evening air, fading as they turned down another street.

Jack sat alone at a small corner table, still wearing his visitor’s badge, his hands wrapped around a lukewarm coffee he had no intention of drinking. His eyes were dark, thoughtful — not angry, but sharpened by something heavier. Jeeny walked in quietly, a stack of papers in one hand, her white coat half unbuttoned, fatigue trailing behind her like shadow.

Host: The smell of disinfectant and overcooked soup lingered in the air — the familiar perfume of overburdened mercy.

Jeeny: “Jim Clyburn once said, ‘Pharmaceutical companies are enjoying unprecedented profits and access with this Administration. Yet the Republicans’ prescription drug plan for seniors has been a colossal failure, and over 43 million Americans wake up every morning without health insurance.’”

Jack: (bitterly) “Forty-three million. That’s not a statistic. That’s a confession.”

Jeeny: “It’s a wound. And it keeps bleeding while people argue about which hand to blame.”

Jack: “You sound like you’ve been on both sides of the debate.”

Jeeny: “I have. Policy meetings in D.C. by day, patient emergencies by night. One side talks about cost curves and budgets — the other side talks about pain.”

Host: She sat across from him, setting her papers aside. The table between them was scratched and sticky with forgotten sugar packets — an altar for quiet truths.

Jack: “You know, Clyburn’s right. The profits are soaring — record highs. Shareholders celebrate while families ration insulin.”

Jeeny: “It’s the same story told with different diseases. A parent skipping medication to pay rent, a young adult avoiding the ER because they can’t afford it.”

Jack: “And politicians frame it as economics — not ethics.”

Jeeny: “Because ethics don’t win elections. But numbers do.”

Host: A soft hum filled the pause between them — the sound of a vending machine cooling nothing but air.

Jack: “You think healthcare’s a right?”

Jeeny: “It’s a responsibility. The measure of a civilization is how it treats its sick — not its successful.”

Jack: “Then we’re failing the exam.”

Jeeny: “We’ve been failing it for decades. The system rewards profit, not prevention.”

Host: She rubbed her temples, eyes closed for a moment, as if the noise of bureaucracy still echoed in her mind.

Jeeny: “You know, I once had a patient — seventy-two, retired teacher. She brought me a bag of pill bottles, each half full. She was cutting them in half to make them last longer. Said, ‘I just need to hold on until next month’s check.’”

Jack: “Did she make it?”

Jeeny: “Barely. The system saved her body, but it broke her dignity.”

Jack: “And someone, somewhere, got a bonus for selling those pills.”

Jeeny: “Yes. That’s what Clyburn was saying — the architecture of health has been hijacked by profit.”

Jack: “So we have a system where illness is currency.”

Jeeny: “And healing’s just a brand name.”

Host: Outside, the rain began — light at first, tapping gently against the wide glass windows. The streetlights shimmered on the wet pavement, bending like distant halos.

Jack: “You know, when my father was dying, I remember the nurse whispering that the drug he needed wasn’t covered. I had to call three different pharmacies before I found one that would fill it. By then, he was too weak to swallow it.”

Jeeny: “That’s not medicine. That’s cruelty with paperwork.”

Jack: “And yet we call it policy.”

Jeeny: “Because calling it cruelty would require changing it.”

Host: Her voice trembled slightly — not from emotion, but from exhaustion that comes when truth becomes routine.

Jack: “You think any government will ever fix it?”

Jeeny: “Not until they stop treating healthcare like a product. You can’t negotiate compassion in a marketplace.”

Jack: “Then what’s the alternative?”

Jeeny: “Start over. Redefine value — not in profits per quarter, but in lives per day.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, drumming steadily now — like the heartbeat of a world refusing to sleep through its own conscience.

Jack: “You know, what’s strange is how normalized it all feels. We’ve built a culture where people accept suffering as a subscription plan.”

Jeeny: “Because we’ve been trained to see survival as privilege. Not as birthright.”

Jack: “And those without coverage — they’re invisible.”

Jeeny: “No. They’re visible only when they die.”

Host: The silence between them wasn’t empty; it was full — of names, stories, faces they both carried without ever saying aloud.

Jack: “You know, Clyburn’s not just criticizing a policy. He’s diagnosing a sickness — a moral one.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The disease of indifference. It spreads faster than any virus.”

Jack: “And the cure?”

Jeeny: “Accountability. Compassion. Policy shaped by people, not parties.”

Jack: “You sound idealistic.”

Jeeny: “No. Just tired of watching people die for profit margins.”

Host: She pushed the stack of papers toward him. Charts, statistics, testimonies — the anatomy of a broken system, laid bare.

Jeeny: “Every number is a person. Every policy is a pulse. But they forget that in Washington.”

Jack: “Maybe they never knew.”

Jeeny: “Then we remind them. Again and again, until remembering becomes reform.”

Host: The lights flickered, the rain outside thickening into a downpour. A nurse passed by, humming softly, carrying a tray of medications — quiet efficiency in motion.

Jack: “You ever think about leaving medicine? Doing something easier?”

Jeeny: “Every day. But then someone thanks me for listening — not curing, just listening — and I remember why I stay.”

Jack: “Because healing starts before the prescription.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: She smiled — small, fragile, but real. It broke the heaviness in the room like a crack of dawn through cloud.

Jack: “You know, maybe the real revolution won’t come from Congress. It’ll come from the exam room. From people like you.”

Jeeny: “Or people like you — the ones who refuse to stop asking questions.”

Host: The rain eased, leaving behind the quiet after-storm calm that feels like mercy. The clock ticked on — relentless but gentle.

Jack: “You think Clyburn’s right? That we can’t call it freedom while people are still dying from the cost of living?”

Jeeny: “He’s absolutely right. Freedom means nothing if survival is conditional.”

Jack: “So the true measure of a nation isn’t how much it earns — but how few it abandons.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: They sat in silence again, both staring at the cold coffee between them, its surface trembling faintly with the hum of the building.

Host: And as the city lights flickered against the glass, Jim Clyburn’s words seemed to fill the quiet cafeteria like a slow, relentless truth:

Host: that prosperity without compassion is corruption;
that a nation’s wealth means nothing when its people can’t afford to live;
and that until care becomes collective — not commercial —
every cured disease will still leave behind the sickness of inequality.

Host: For in the end, what truly heals a country
is not profit,
but the promise that no one will be left behind.