Your Vote 2025: When the System Fails — Terri Houihan's Fight for Arizona

In this Your Vote 2025 episode of Birdman on the Mountain, Birdman sits down in Show Low, Arizona, for an unexpected and powerful conversation with Teri Houihan, an Arizona native collecting signatures to run for governor.

What begins as a casual coffeehouse interview quickly becomes a deep examination of Arizona's Medicaid system, state agency oversight, and the real-world consequences of bureaucratic failure. Houihan shares her personal journey—from addiction recovery and faith, to earning advanced degrees and building a large, integrated mental health services organization.

She then details how a software error led to fraud allegations, a prolonged Medicaid suspension, and the collapse of her company—despite later being cleared of fraud, waste, and abuse. Houihan explains how delays, lack of transparency, and agency inaction devastated employees, disrupted care for vulnerable patients, and exposed systemic problems affecting providers across Arizona.

Birdman grounds the conversation by placing Houihan's experience into a broader context, emphasizing that this is not an isolated story but part of a statewide pattern—where systems appear functional on paper while failing in practice.

The episode explores why Houihan believes real reform must come from the executive level, arguing that oversight responsibility ultimately rests with the governor's office, currently led by Katie Hobbs, and why legislative hearings alone have not produced meaningful change.

This candid, unscripted conversation tackles accountability, free speech, whistleblowing, and the personal cost of challenging entrenched systems. Whether listeners agree or disagree, Your Vote 2025 delivers an unfiltered look at why one Arizonan decided the only path forward was to run for governor.

For more information - https://teriann4azgov.org

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