Dr. James Weinstein-director of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and co-founder of the new Dartmouth Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery.

Conversations on Health Care® focuses this week on the contributions Dartmouth College has made to health reform and innovation. Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. James Weinstein, the leader driving the health policy and delivery research efforts at Dartmouth.

Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.

Conversations on Health Care® focuses this week on developments in healthcare reform and innovation at the state level. Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Alan Weil from the National Academy for State Health Policy, about the role states play implementing the new healthcare law, and the opportunity for every state to act as a laboratory for innovation.

Alan Weil, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Alan Weil, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs, the leading journal at the intersection of health, health care, and health policy. Mr. Weil discusses the vital role the publication must play as a non-partisan, peer-reviewed journal in the ongoing health care debate and how its presence is poised to expand in the new media marketplace.

Alan Weil, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Alan Weil, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs, the leading journal at the intersection of health, health care, and health policy. Mr. Weil discusses the vital role the publication must play as a non-partisan, peer-reviewed journal in the ongoing health care debate and how its presence is poised to expand in the new media marketplace.

Lowell Weicker, former U.S. senator and governor of Connecticut and current president of the Trust for America's Heath

Conversations on Health Care® focuses today on our nation's public health system. Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Lowell Weicker, president of the Trust for America's Health, a non-profit, non-partisan public health policy organization that is working to modernize the public health system in America.

Have a Way to Beat an Illness? These Federal Experts Need to Hear From You

We’re on location at Aspen Ideas-Health, talking with the leaders of a new innovation effort. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is backed by $2.5 billion dollars in federal money with a mandate to accelerate better health outcomes for everyone. The initiative aims to work outside of traditions with a “range of performers and a variety of approaches to solve” health care’s biggest hurdles. Can they find a way to reduce cancer deaths? That’s one of the questions hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter ask Renee Wegrzyn, ARPA-H’s director and Amy Jenkins, its director of Health Science Futures.

Self-healing joints? Perfect surgeries? Your tax $$ could make it happen

The director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) knows the eyes of the nation are on her. Renee Wegrzyn, Ph.D., leads the billion-dollar effort charged with leveraging research advances for real-world impact.

Wegrzyn talked with hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter at Aspen Ideas: Health about the agency’s initiatives, including a $100 million sprint for women’s health and creating tissue-specific delivery of therapies.

“How can we pursue some of these breakthroughs — in our case, for health — by empowering the scientists…the program managers…that have these really big ideas that are so risky that the technical sector, the private sector can’t address because there’s no proof of concept?”

She explained the process: Hire program managers with big ideas in health and give them a time frame to find solutions.

Wegrzyn said the time limit ensures they bring a sense of urgency to solving problems. In return, participants get resources to focus on technical risks.

Many of ARPA-H’s missions are cancer-centered, aimed at issues through what-if questions such as: “What if cancer surgeries were one-and-done?” “What if clinical trials evolved in the same way tumors do?”

She said, “The investments that we’ve made in cancer [include] our precision surgical interventions program. Think about reimagining the operating room suites, when a surgeon is looking into a surgical cavity and trying to remove a tumor.”

Biden COVID Equity Advisor Faces Dilemma as His Employer Drops Vaccine Mandate

Dr. Cameron Webb, White House Senior Policy Adviser for COVID-19 Equity, is navigating a tricky situation — as he advocates for vaccines, the university where he works just dropped its student vaccine mandate. Webb tells Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that he realizes the University of Virginia has some new dynamics to navigate. “There’s this rush to roll back a lot of the strategies that have gotten us to a point where we’re seeing less death,” he says. “This pandemic has been politicized to a point that it’s indistinguishable from the rest of our political rhetoric…rhetoric often meant to motivate a voter base.” Webb also discusses the administration’s efforts to address COVID equity issues, including the need to collect better data about race and ethnicity vaccination rates.

Food is Medicine: How Young Changemakers are Transforming Healthcare

Dr. Vindell Washington, National Coordinator for Health IT at HHS

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Vindell Washington, National Coordinator for Health IT at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the agency's program to shift the health care industry from paper to electronic health records. Dr. Washington discusses the agency's strategic plan for advancing those goals and for accelerating the creation of universal standards for health information exchange and the promotion of interoperability.

Health Disparities and the American Indian: Dr. Donald Warne on the Way Forward

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Donald Warne, Director of Indians Into Medicine (INMED) at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He discusses the impact of cultural trauma on the American Indian population, strategies for addressing health disparities and the need to mentor Native youth in the health professions.

COVID-19 and American Indians: Dr. Donald Warne on the Devastating Toll of the Pandemic on Native American Populations

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Donald Warne, Director of Indians Into Medicine (INMED) at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine. A renowned expert on American Indian health policies, Dr. Warne talks about the devastating toll COVID-19 is exacting on communities of color, particularly American Indians, who already suffer the effects of long term poverty, health disparities and Congress’ repeated failure to fully fund Indian Health Services which has led to a huge burden of chronic disease.

Yulun Wang, President of the American Telemedicine Association

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Yulun Wang, Ph.D, President of the American Telemedicine Association, dedicated to the full integration of telemedicine within the health care system. An engineer with over 50 patents to his name, Dr. Wang is also Chairman and CEO of InTouch Health, a global leader in telehealth technologies

Indiana Secretary of Social Services Dr. Jennifer Walthall Discusses Health Care Transformation Through Medicaid Expansion and Waivers

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Jennifer Walthall, Indiana's Secretary of the Family and Social Services Administration, which oversees the state's Medicaid program. She discusses their unique approach to expanding Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of residents, as well as the state's comprehensive response to the spike in opioid and HIV cases.

Dr. Robert Wallace, Chair of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Living Well With Chronic Illness

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Robert Wallace, Chair of the Institute of Medicine Committee that recently released its report and recommendations "Living Well With Chronic Illness: A Call for Public Action". The report addresses the burden of chronic illness and suggests changes in public health policy and practice and how the country addresses chronic illness.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Talks Boosters, Masks and Health Equity

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Walensky defends the science behind lifting mask restrictions for vaccinated Americans, examines the ongoing research on vaccine efficacy against emerging COVID variants and possibility of a need for booster shots. She also outlines efforts underway by the CDC and the Biden Administration to leverage provisions in the American Recovery Act to address health inequity by strengthening the nation’s public health infrastructure

A Candid Conversation with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Politics of the Office, Masking Guidelines, COVID Testing and Pandemic Frustration

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, addressing confusion and frustration around lack of rapid COVID tests and need for more N95 masks for the public. She talks about the shifting plan of action from the Biden Administration in response to the dramatic surge in omicron-driven COVID cases, and the scaled up efforts to make rapid tests and high quality masks available to all Americans.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on COVID Fall Booster Details

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and colleagues will soon review data for the new bivalent booster shot for COVID; she says it relates to very small changes in the mRNA sequence and that “shouldn’t impact safety at all…if we wait for those data to emerge in human data…not just mice data but human data…we would be using what I would consider to be a potentially outdated vaccine…it’s best to use a vaccine that’s tailored to the variant we have right now.”

Still, Dr. Walensky urges anyone who’s eligible to get the current booster right now while the U.S. government reviews the bivalent research. She points out that most of the cases of severe disease and death from COVID are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people. “We have now given over 600 million doses of this vaccine in this country so we have an extraordinary safety profile, probably unlike any we’ve seen with any vaccine in history.”

Listen in to this important conversation with hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter.

Primary Care Innovator, Dr. Ed Wagner, on Patient-Centered, Coordinated Health Care Models

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Ed Wagner of the Kaiser Permanente Health Research Institute, and founder of the McColl Center for Health Innovation, where he focused on improving primary care. Dr. Wagner is the creator of the Chronic Care Model of patient management, and co-directs the LEAP project at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which conducts research on patient-centered, coordinated and team-based approaches to improving primary care delivery and outcomes.

Health Care Budget Fight: Hear Each Side’s Argument

Republicans in the U.S. House passed a deal that lifts the debt ceiling along with spending cuts aimed at the nation’s health care safety net.

Romina Boccia, Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at the Cato Institute, supports the move. She says, “I do think there’s quite a bit of improper spending, waste for certain and things the federal government shouldn’t be involved with anymore, where members of Congress could cut.”

Jennifer Wagner, Director of Medicaid Eligibility and Enrollment with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is a critic of the GOP actions. “These cuts would devastate these programs especially when you protect certain programs that have been taken off the table…that means cuts to other programs like Medicaid like SNAP would be absurdly large,” she explains.

Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter give you the chance to hear both sides on this vitally important budget fight that will continue as President Biden and the Senate make the next moves.