# Medicare, Disability Insurance & Mortality During A Two-Year Waiting Period Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-health-podyssey-1366621/medicare-disability-insurance-mortality-during-a-two-year-waiting-period Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-health-podyssey-1366621/medicare-disability-insurance-mortality-during-a-two-year-waiting-period.md Podcast: [A Health Podyssey](https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-health-podyssey-1366621) Published: 2026-03-24T04:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/3b9466d1 Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/3b9466d1/74c8c4df.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/a-health-podyssey-1366621/episodes/medicare-disability-insurance-mortality-during-a-two-year-waiting-period Duration seconds: 1385 ## Resource Health Affairs ' Rob Lott interviews David Powell of the University of Pennsylvania about his recent paper exploring new research showing SSDI beneficiaries face significantly elevated mortality during the mandatory two‑year waiting period for Medicare for such beneficiaries, why the waiting period exists, how it affects access to care, and what policy options could better serve this vulnerable population. Order the March 2026 issue of Health Affairs . Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support , we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcast for everyone. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/a-health-podyssey-1366621/episodes/medicare-disability-insurance-mortality-during-a-two-year-waiting-period/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/a-health-podyssey-1366621/medicare-disability-insurance-mortality-during-a-two-year-waiting-period.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.