- Bridge reporters Eli Newman and Simon D. Schuster discuss health care impacts on the 2026 election on WJR’s ‘All Talk with Kevin Dietz’
- Increasing insurance premiums, Medicaid cuts and how the state’s gubernatorial candidates are responding were all discussed on the show
- The WJR collaboration is part of Bridge Listens. We are asking readers to nominate their top 2026 election issues in this form
Bridge Michigan and WJR-760 teamed up Wednesday for a discussion on health care challenges as part of an ongoing election-season collaboration.
Reporters Eli Newman and Simon D. Schuster joined “All Talk with Kevin Dietz” to discuss rising insurance costs, shrinking Medicaid support and how Michigan gubernatorial candidates are addressing those issues.
You can watch WJR-760 All Talk here.
The partnership — known as “Election 2026 Coverage that Matters to Michigan” — is part of Bridge Listens, a year-long effort to help identify and discuss the top election issues in Michigan before the 2026 election.
Bridge readers identified rising health care costs as a top concern in our ongoing survey.
“This is just an unignorable part of people’s day-to-day experiences,” Newman told Dietz. “Those prices are really first and foremost in people’s minds.”
Readers also listed reduced access to care in rural communities, the state’s aging population and a lack of mental health services in their responses.
Gubernatorial candidates have their own strategies to improve the state’s health care system.
“A lot of them have put health care front and center of their campaign,” Schuster told Dietz. Bridge reporters are hosting a virtual event Wednesday, April 29 at 7 p.m., to discuss their health care findings and to answer questions from readers. Register here for a calendar invitation to Zoom link to join.
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