Episode description

Vern Smith is a nationally lauded expert in Medicaid, Medicare, state budgets, and trends in the healthcare marketplace. He has authored numerous reports on current issues in Medicaid and state strategies for containing health care costs and improving quality.

In this intimate interview, Bryan’s father-in-law Vern shares incredible stories of what he calls "the little things" that happened throughout his years that contributed to him living a life he never could have imagined.

In This Episode:

• The shaping of self-image at an early age
• The impactful examples set by his parents
• The importance of travel to a person’s education
• Growing up and experimenting in a different era
• Ten cans of Spam
• Changing college majors 5 times
• An unexpected medical diagnosis that actually opened the door to his lifelong career
• Serving the public as a health economist and Medicaid Director
• Continuing his service in a consulting role after retirement
• The significance of the words on a plaque that used to hang in his father’s office
• The little shift that led to Vern meeting his wife of 55 years, Paula