04/05/2026: Return to Ram, Ghost Train, The Mardi Gras Indians

As the affordable care marketplace has seen premiums rise and Medicaid faces its biggest cuts ever, correspondent Scott Pelley revisits one charity, Remote Area Medical, that delivers aid to Americans cut off from healthcare by location and cost. At one of RAM’s free, pop-up clinics, Pelley meets patients sleeping in their cars and standing in line, many hundreds of miles from their homes, in desperate need of care. Countries around the world have built high-speed rail - why has it failed to catch on in the U.S.? An ambitious state-run project connecting L.A. and San Francisco is vastly behind schedule and has seen costs balloon. One private company is hoping it can succeed where the public sector hasn’t – but that too faces challenges. Correspondent Jon Wertheim reports on the state of high-speed rail in the U.S. – which has become a stand-in for a broader question: can America still build big things?  Every year on Mardi Gras Day, Black revelers roam the backstreets of New Orleans in dazzling, hand-sewn suits that take an entire year to create. Correspondent Bill Whitaker meets the Mardi Gras Indians, also known as Black Masking Indians, one of America’s last secret societies, who are preserving a culture that dates to at least the 1800s. It’s a tradition marked by resilience and resistance that honors their ancestors. Nichole Marks is the producer.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices