Richter’s favorite topic is health care reform. He, in fact, attributes his show’s cessation to his desires to educate the public on the very topic, and most specifically bill HR 676 on the Enhanced Medicare System, what he sees as the best path to universal, single-payer coverage. “No caps, no limits, no exceptions — everybody in; nobody out,” he said. “Unless we severely change the system, this country will never have an economic recovery.”
Richter’s ideal construct is to reserve private insurance for nonessential needs, such as cosmetic surgery; he adamantly argues that health care does not belong in the hands of for-profit companies. “Capitalism is a cannibalistic blood sport,” he said, hearkening back to his 37 years at IBM as a product planner. “IBM said to charge enough to never leave any money on the table. This is the problem with trying to earn a profit on health. Health care is even retarding our nation’s economic recovery.”
Richter was born and raised in Brooklyn then moved to Connecticut, then Kentucky then Kingston in the 1950s. In 1946 he served in the occupation of Japan under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, driving a jeep. He began to witness the carnage of the health care system when his first wife died at 36 of breast cancer, leaving behind their three young children. He has been with his present wife, Nancy Richter, for 37 years.
Two of Richter’s three daughters have careers in the medical field. Lynn Richter owns a dental lab in Kingston; Dr. Deb Richter is a doctor and a health care reform activist in Vermont who works with Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin on health care reform education and seminars. Deb Richter has been a guest on Kingston Free Radio numerous times to discuss and inform on the issues.
Richter is now contemplating how to mass-distribute his voice to reach a wider population. He said that though the tried-and-true formula has historically been one thousand listeners to every one caller, he questions the veracity of that in these satellite radio and podcast days. The octogenarian admitted he is limited by his lack of involvement with social media and blogging, but he also cited making informational videos for Youtube, though he is not entirely sure how to get people to click.
County Comptroller Elliott Auerbach concurred with the sentiments of Sennett, which is that Richter will be sorely missed. “Progressive local radio just had the volume turned down with the departure of its Sunday morning personality Art Richter,” said Auerbach. “While [Richter] was consistently passionate about health care reform, he would not turn his back on whatever concern he felt was ‘good for government.’ He was an outspoken advocate for many of the reforms he believed in and would not shy away from a vibrant political debate on any bread and butter issue. Local public radio will be a little less lively without the pulsating personality of Art Richter behind the microphone encouraging his listeners to mobilize behind a cause he strongly believed in.”
It is a REQUIREMENT that anyone who tells the truth about anything political locally HAS to be of advanced age and thus earn respect on account of that. Otherwise, there is no voice for the truth–or you are called a lunatic–the twin tactics of the Soviet Totalitarianism society we only “ostensibly” decry today. Who is there anymore who meets such qualifications? Orvil Norman is dead thus involuntarily retired.