Code WACK!

How does the lack of universal sick leave and health care affect America's ability to respond to pandemics?  In this fourth in a series with host Brenda Gazzar , Dr. Tony Iton , Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment , explains why Western Europe and the U.S. may have very different public policies. Will the coronavirus finally create a sense of shared fate and s...

Learn which of us are most vulnerable during this pandemic, and why. In this third of a podcast series with host Brenda Gazzar , Dr. Tony Iton , senior vice president for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment, describes the intersection of p olicy, income inequality, race and social vulnerability . Which policy solutions weaken our nation in the face of health crises like the coronavirus...

Learn how deforestation and climate change are increasing the likelihood of future pandemics and what America can do to prepare for them. In this second of a podcast series with host Brenda Gazzar , Dr. Tony Iton , senior vice president for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment, explains how our market-based healthcare system incentivizes profits over public health investments. How would...

Find out how the erosion of America's public health system undermined our response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic. In this first of a podcast series, Dr. Tony Iton , senior vice president for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment , explains how having a patchwork health insurance system, along with a weakened public health system, has left America even more vulnerable during the cris...

What's more precious than our children? Yet a growing number of children are losing insurance and as a result, access to health care. How does this impact them? Join host Brenda Gazzar as Dr. Ana Malinow , UCSF pediatrician, shares stories of young patients and the sometimes devastating consequences they faced. Why are children losing their health insurance today, after the Affordable Care Act? Ho...

How do parents balance their own needs and their children's in America's high-stakes healthcare system? Learn how one devoted mother was forced to make a choice with traumatic consequences. Rebecca Wood , a Boston mother, has faced a years-long struggle to pay for the care needed by her daughter Charlie, who was born severely premature at only 26 weeks gestation. How were their lives changed by th...

Learn how America's corporate healthcare system delays and/or denies care to save money and increase profits. Wendell Potter , co-founder of Business for Medicare for All and former Communications Director for CIGNA, explains the often arbitrary nature of insurance coverage denials. Host Brenda Gazzar explores how such denials impact patients and their doctors. Guests include Dr. Barbara Goff , bo...

Learn about the unique challenges women face when it comes to accessing health care. Dr. Ana Malinow , a pediatrician, and her husband Dr. Aleksandar Rajkovic , an obstetrician, talk with host Brenda Gazzar about how women are vulnerable, and reveal the risky calculation some women make when forced to delay or avoid care. Don't forget to subscribe to the show!

Find out why health care costs so much -- and how Medicare for All would help. Host Brenda Gazzar and long-time consumer advocate Harry Snyder , a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, discuss how our current healthcare system is failing us. Then, Dr. James G. Kahn , a health economics expert and emeritus professor at UC San Francisco, explains how our complicated system of public and p...

Join host Brenda Gazzar as she explores how our ultra-complicated   healthcare system affects doctors and their patients. Dr. Paul Song , radiation oncologist and president of Physicians for a National Health Program – California, details the everyday health insurance hassles physicians face.  And Dr. Ron Birnbaum , dermatologist at the USC-Eisner Family Clinic, explains how  the type of health pl...