Loneliness isn’t just a feeling - it’s a public health crisis. The number of hours we spend with friends is rapidly decreasing, more and more Americans report feeling lonely, and loneliness is linked to bad health outcomes like risk of premature death, heart disease, stroke, depression and anxiety. Kasley Killam, author of “The Art and Science and Connection”, joins us to talk about why social health should be the third pillar of wellness alongside physical and mental health. We discuss: The sur...
Jul 02, 2025•43 min•Season 3Ep. 55
What if instead of treating illness we also confronted the reasons Americans get sick in the first place? That’s the origin of this podcast and also the four billion dollar question Dr. Bechara Choucair is tackling at Kaiser Permanente as Chief Community Health Officer. He joins Claudia to talk about the organization’s focus on climate change and health, workforce pipelines and addressing unmet social needs. We discuss: The surprising fact that two-thirds of KP’s members (who are mostly covered ...
Jun 18, 2025•40 min•Season 3Ep. 54
The US leads the world in biomedical innovation, with about 40% of patents being filed by US scientists and companies. The FDA plays a critical role in supporting and enabling this innovation pipeline and our guest Dr. Robert Califf was commissioner of the agency not once, but twice under Presidents Obama and Biden. He joins us to talk about what Americans should know about FDA’s critical role and the threats to its functioning from the dramatic cuts the Trump administration has made over the la...
Jun 04, 2025•40 min•Season 3Ep. 53
Could primary care at home unlock better health and lower costs for American families? Rebekah Gee, a physician and policymaker turned entrepreneur, joins us to talk about the big bet her company Nest Health is making on home-based primary care. It’s a model that makes sense for families and delivers results. In the first year of operations Nest doubled primary care visits, reduced ER visits, and increased childhood immunizations. We discuss: The sound economics behind the Medicaid expansion in ...
May 21, 2025•43 min•Season 3Ep. 52
Whether it's the civil rights movement, marriage equality or even seatbelt laws, community organizing is how change happens in America. In this encore episode, Dr. Tony Iton shares a masterclass in how social, political and economic power shape health outcomes and how to meaningfully shift those dynamics when it matters most. Tony argues that reinvigorating democracy at the community and local level is where we should be doubling down. This episode was impactful when it was first released but is...
May 07, 2025•44 min•Season 3Ep. 51
California is full of hardworking people—nurses, teachers, delivery drivers, baristas—who keep our communities running. Many of them live paycheck-to-paycheck, making too much to qualify for most government benefits, but not enough to afford the basics. For nearly 2 million Californians, Covered California provides a critical lifeline, offering access to affordable health insurance and now basic needs support. Dr. Monica Soni, Chief Medical Officer of Covered California, joins Claudia to talk ab...
Apr 23, 2025•42 min•Season 3Ep. 50
In the wake of massive layoffs at HHS - and so many other federal agencies and programs - we are sharing the powerful stories of federal workers who had no choice but to leave their important work when they were fired post-election. You’ll hear from a former marine who was improving primary care for fellow veterans, a child of farmworkers who was expanding economic opportunities for rural communities and a technologist who was improving the organ transplant distribution system. They used their e...
Apr 09, 2025•34 min•Season 3Ep. 49
With the House approving a plan to slash $880 billion from the federal budget, all eyes are turning to Medicaid as the most likely source of cuts. I asked former North Carolina Health Secretary Kody Kinsley, KFF’s Larry Levitt and California Health Care Foundation’s Katie Heidorn to join me to discuss the likely shape and impact of proposed cuts, and take questions from UC Berkeley students. Kody called it a “self-licking ice cream cone” —cuts that destabilize the government, leading to further ...
Mar 26, 2025•54 min•Season 3Ep. 48
New York Medicaid has made some big bets on social care recently, and Amir Bassiri is here to answer all our questions. The bold new program centers on nine new regional networks that will be hubs for community organizations offering housing, food and other services. Will this program survive the new administration? Only time will tell. We discuss: The state's ambitious plan to screen every Medicaid enrollee for health-related social needs How their approach differs from the social care strategi...
Mar 12, 2025•37 min•Season 3Ep. 47
Driving fast on the open road is almost as American as apple pie. We all remember the thrill of our first car - a symbol of American freedom and independence. But is our love affair with cars killing us? David Zipper joins us to talk about the wide ranging health impacts of our car obsession, and how policy innovations like congestion pricing and weight-based taxes could offer a way out. We dive into: Why pedestrian deaths are much higher in the US than Canada The successful, but potentially sho...
Feb 26, 2025•45 min•Season 3Ep. 46
An incredible 43% of Americans are unpaid caregivers, who are often alone with the burden and blessing of caring for their loved ones as life begins and in the complex and heartbreaking final days. Studies show their mental health is suffering – 52% of “sandwich generation” caregivers report that they have actively thought about suicide in the last 30 days. Alexandra Drane, CEO of ARCHANGELS, joins us to talk about the urgent need for culture and policy change to see, honor and support unpaid ca...
Feb 12, 2025•22 min•Season 3Ep. 45
If AI is going to rapidly improve healthcare, shouldn’t we start at the ground floor - with primary care? Cityblock’s Chief Health Officer Dr. Kameron Matthews joins us to talk about how AI can reduce complexity and burnout, improve patient outcomes and free care teams to focus on human connections. We discuss: What it takes to design with and for the communities Her work with the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) to drive the development, evaluation, and appropriate use of AI in healthcare Lessons...
Jan 29, 2025•36 min•Season 3Ep. 44
For the past 20 years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the ONC has played a pivotal role shaping and regulating the health tech market. On the eve of the election, Micky Tripathi joined me to discuss the agency’s recently expanded role. Now, two months later—though it feels like a decade—the future is uncertain. Will the ONC and ASTP continue as market regulators and opportunity catalysts, or is a new direction on the horizon? Here’s what we covered: The government’s role i...
Jan 15, 2025•31 min•Season 3Ep. 43
There’s a lot of concern right now about healthcare affordability, but not enough action. Paul Markovich, the CEO of Blue Shield of California, is on a mission to bring down health costs by reducing administrative overhead and negotiating lower drug prices. In this episode we dive deep into Paul’s call to action for healthcare leaders to tackle the affordability crisis head-on. Paul and I discuss: How Blue Shield slashed the cost of arthritis drug Humira, by offering a biosimilar at 25% of the c...
Dec 11, 2024•27 min•Season 3Ep. 42
On so many issues, Congress has not been willing or able to act. But when faced with horrifying stories of death and mismanagement, Congress finally passed legislation to reform the US organ transplant system. They did so because people like Donna Cryer, a transplant recipient and patient advocate, demanded a better system for Americans who need lifesaving organ transplants. Now, as the new law moves into implementation, the work continues. In this episode, Donna and I discuss: The new legislati...
Nov 27, 2024•35 min•Season 3Ep. 41
Dr. Theresa “Terry” Cullen is on a mission to make Pima County, Arizona one of the healthiest counties in the nation. It’s a challenging goal, and one that will take dedication and a willingness to fight for what’s right. But, Terry is a self-described, life-long pugilist – with an approach to healthcare that goes beyond policies and programs. Everything she does is rooted in her deep belief in accompaniment; that her role is to walk alongside her patients and community offering empathy, dignity...
Nov 13, 2024•42 min•Season 3Ep. 40
With the election just days away, Larry Levitt joins me to discuss where Harris and Trump stand on key health issues: reproductive health, affordability and Medicaid. While health has not taken center stage (as it has in the past), the outcome of this election will have profound impacts on every aspect of health in the years ahead. We discuss: Why the ACA is no longer a political battlefield The shifting dynamics of abortion as a single-issue vote Why medical debt and drug prices are key afforda...
Oct 30, 2024•39 min•Season 3Ep. 39
How do you create a healthier city? As the climate shifts, screens dominate our lives and cities continue to grow - urban areas are grappling with how to put themselves on a better track to health. New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan joins The Other 80 to talk about his ambitious plan to increase health in the Big Apple, with the goal of increasing life expectancy from 78 to 83 years. We discuss: What Paul Farmer taught him about rejecting a scarcity mindset and reaching for bold ...
Oct 16, 2024•42 min•Season 3Ep. 38
In July, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a landmark advisory declaring firearm violence a national public health crisis. The advisory builds on decades of work from Dr. Megan Ranney and other researchers who advocate taking a public health approach to reducing firearm violence. She joined us at Aspen Ideas: Health to discuss what this means: namely moving from a focus on law and order to centering harm reduction and prevention. Now, as the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, Meg...
Oct 02, 2024•45 min•Season 3Ep. 37
Deena Shakir is an investor who is obsessed with expanding access to the basic health services people need and often can’t access: pediatric care, community health and women’s services. Her journey to investing passed through policymaking, journalism and big tech and her early techno optimism has given way to a much more nuanced and pragmatic view. She is able to see the big opportunities for impact hiding in plain sight. We discuss: The two obvious megatrends hitting healthcare: GLP1s and AI An...
Sep 18, 2024•36 min•Season 3Ep. 36
Government systems often take a lot of flack for their (sometimes) built-in inability to take risks and make big bets. So, what would it take to encourage the government to take those big, risky moonshots? For Health, that’s the role of ARPA-H – to fund new ways of improving health by investing in people with big ideas. We sat down with ARPA-H Director Renee Wegrzyn at Aspen Ideas Health to talk about how it’s going and what comes next. We discuss: Why ARPA-H is personal for President Biden. How...
Sep 04, 2024•43 min•Season 3Ep. 35
The US is living through an affordable housing crisis - in fact, we are short millions and millions of affordable housing units. During the pandemic, homelessness flattened with an influx of resources to help keep people housed. But, those resources have long expired and now we are seeing an uptick in homelessness across the country. Jeff Olivet, the director of USICH (United States Interagency Council on Homelessness), says the problem is complex – but the math isn’t. We need more affordable ho...
Jul 24, 2024•46 min•Season 2Ep. 34
California is the latest state to address healthcare affordability through cost growth targets. Elizabeth Mitchell – President and CEO of Purchaser Business Group on Health – Joins us to discuss the nuts and bolts of the 3% cost growth target recently adopted by the state. Healthcare affordability is a big issue across the country. More than half of us skip or postpone care due to cost and medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy. Reining in medical costs is also how we’ll free up resourc...
Jul 10, 2024•41 min•Season 2Ep. 33
The scope, scale and timeline of what California is trying to do with CalAIM is truly breathtaking. Two years after the launch of the ambitious program, which offers integrated medical and social care for California's 15 million Medicaid members, Dr. Palav Babaria joins us to discuss how it’s going and what comes next. Dr. Babaria is a primary care physician who leads quality and population health management for California’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal. We discuss: Which community supports are us...
Jun 26, 2024•41 min•Season 2Ep. 32
To achieve whole person care, we can try layering new social services on top of medical care. But Dr. Rishi Manchanda believes we should move further upstream and ask, what will it take to actually improve health in communities? From founding Rx the Vote to HealthBegins, Rishi is committed to building community social capital in America. We discuss: Why he created HealthBegins, which is now halfway to its goal of transforming equity in 250 communities by 2025 How California is making practice tr...
Jun 12, 2024•40 min•Season 2Ep. 31
June 18th is “Maya Petersen” day in San Francisco, in honor of her work building disease models that guided the region through the early days of COVID and saved countless lives. With projects spanning from developing HIV prevention strategies in East Africa to shaping new Medicaid models in California, the UC Berkeley epidemiologist is building a future where local public health leaders have the tools and data to ask and answer complex policy decisions in real time. Now that’s a world I want to ...
May 29, 2024•40 min•Season 2Ep. 30
If there’s one thing politicians do little of these days it’s change their minds. But, that’s exactly what North Carolina’s General Assembly did in 2023. Ten years after the ACA was passed, and in a historic bipartisan move, they changed their minds and voted to expand Medicaid. NC Secretary of Health & Human Services Kody Kinsley joined us to talk about what it took to get this done and how it’s been going so far. We discuss: How to get stuff done in a politically divided state One move tha...
May 15, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 29
One thing is clear from the last four years: public health leaders need to seriously upgrade their skills in communication and partnering. In this episode Anne Zink, who is stepping down as Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, brings us a master class in both topics. Guiding the state through COVID she inspired both a Facebook fan group and the hashtag #ThinkLikeZink. Take a listen and you will see why. We discuss: How we might have avoided the politicization of COVID Partnering with Alaska’s tribes ...
May 01, 2024•44 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Today’s guest is Susannah Fox, author of Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care. The book is a deep dive into the expert network of patients, survivors and caregivers who are charting a new path of innovation and research. It is for anyone who feels alone, forgotten or lost in the shadows of suffering as they navigate a new diagnosis. But, it’s also for anyone working inside healthcare who is fed up with the status quo. We discuss: How patients – like those fir...
Apr 17, 2024•43 min•Season 2Ep. 27
We'll be unpacking lessons from the COVID 19 pandemic for many years to come. Dr. Tomás Aragón, who leads public health for the State of California, joins us to discuss what he learned guiding America's most populous state through this challenging and disruptive period. We discuss: That public health’s deepest power lies in the ability to help diverse groups reach consensus under great uncertainty How California redeployed an army of census workers to support the COVID response The biggest oppor...
Apr 03, 2024•43 min•Season 2Ep. 26
