Dr. Amelia Haviland, Senior Statistician on Health Insurance for the RAND Corporation
This week, Mark and Margaret speak with Dr. Amelia Haviland, Senior Statistician on Health Insurance for the RAND Corporation, a non-profit organization committed to improving public policy through non-partisan research and analysis. Dr. Haviland discusses RAND’s in-depth study of the rapid growth of consumer-directed, high-deductible insurance policies in the private insurance market. She also explores their potential to save tens of billions of dollars in health care costs annually, while cautioning that such plans could lead to diminished health outcomes for consumers of these plans.
This week, Mark and Margaret speak with Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America who discusses the millions of Americans receiving basic health care through the organization and the expansion of health information outreach to tens of millions via the internet and social media. Ms. Richards also discusses the numerous legal challenges to Planned Parenthood on the state and national levels.
This week, Mark and Margaret speak with Dr. Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, Director of Health, Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Sachs discusses the Millennium Project Goals to eliminate extreme global poverty by 2015. This model has greatly improved maternal and infant health outcomes in targeted regions of Africa through the use of community health workers, improved agriculture and nutrition, and development of local health systems.
This week, Mark and Margaret speak with Emmy Award-winning filmmaker John Hoffman, Vice President of HBO Documentary Films and Executive Producer of the “Weight of the Nation”, a four-part documentary series produced in conjunction with the Institute of Medicine and the National Institute of Health, that explores the growing epidemic of obesity in this country. Mr. Hoffman speaks about HBO’s commitment to using the documentary platform to publicize the causes of obesity, and engage communities in a dialogue about actions and solutions.
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Daniel Wolfson, Executive Vice President and COO of the ABIM Foundation, which recently launched the “Choosing Wisely” campaign in conjunction with Consumer Reports and nine medical societies. The campaign seeks to reduce the overuse of unnecessary medical tests which waste limited healthcare resources, pose additional risks to patients and drive up healthcare costs in this country.