Episodes

One of the nation’s top experts on Long COVID explains that it’s still a mystery why virus symptoms remain months and sometimes years after an infection. Dr. Leora Horwitz helps lead the National Institute of Health’s study of Long COVID. She’s the director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science at NYU Langone Health, where they’re integrating the research activities of almost 200 clinical sites.

She says they have found evidence of the virus persisting as well as inflammation or irritation in the bodies of some patients, which may be contributing to the condition.

Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter also ask Dr. Horwitz to explain the new working definition of Long COVID, which is helping the medical community move beyond any one individual symptom to describe it.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra joins “Conversations on Health Care” to answer questions about the big issues he’s facing as the nation’s top health official. Most importantly, he’s dealing with the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision turning abortion law over to the states.

Secretary Becerra says, “A woman is three times more likely to die of a complication during pregnancy if she happens to reside in a state that restricts her access to abortion care services. We are seeing women and their health harmed simply because of the politics in that state …we’re doing everything we can to continue to protect a woman’s right to access the care she needs including abortion care.”

Secretary Becerra leads a $1.7 trillion agency that’s also preparing for the fall vaccination season, ensuring Americans eligible for Medicaid stay enrolled, and planning for his department’s new power to negotiate for drug prices.

Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter ask him to weigh in on all these issues in this week’s edition.

Dr. Kenneth Davis, CEO of Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, juggles a multitude of challenges operating one of the largest systems in the U.S. These include trying to overcome hurdles with a population health initiative as an alternative to the traditional fee-for-service insurance model and defending its Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. Dr. Davis also reflects on how he and his colleagues traversed the early COVID wave.

Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter talked with Dr. Davis on location at Aspen Ideas: Health, a premier gathering of health care leaders and influencers.

Dr. Anthony Fauci shared a sobering message with “Conversations on Health Care”: In the past year about 20% of Americans have received the COVID booster vaccine; “that’s not good if you really want to get a degree of immunity that you can lift up,” he says. Fauci explains that getting to 50% should be the goal.

“What we’re hoping is that people who come in with the uptake of a flu vaccine would also come in…at the same time, the same day…[get the] COVID [one]. The new vaccine is not going to be a bivalent, it’s going to be a monovalent Omicron derivative.” The fall 2023 COVID vaccine is currently awaiting FDA approval.

Fauci also reflected on the tense relationship between China and the United States. “The more we make accusations and the more we push against them, the more they pull back and in order to be able to have the kind of broad, global surveillance, global cooperation, global collaboration, you’ve got to have a relationship the way we had before COVID.” He also acknowledged that the Chinese have been very obtuse and secretive.

Fauci, speaking at Aspen Ideas: Health, harkened back to the bipartisan creation two decades ago of the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which is credited with saving 25 million lives in under-resourced countries.

Fauci also shared that he’s making progress on his memoir, with a manuscript due by the end of the year and an expected publish date by the first half of 2024.

He was interviewed by “Conversations on Health Care” hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter; they’re grateful to Aspen Ideas: Health leaders for inviting the program to hold one-on-one interviews during the gathering.

Law professor and public policy advocate Christina S. Ho’s new book, “Normalizing an American Right to Health,” boldly makes the legal case for health as a right that should already exist in the United States. She explains why and unpacks how reinsurance and a Health Impact Assessment fit into her analysis.

Join hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter as she wonders why we can provide government subsidies for things like fracking, which has negative health effects, but avoid doing more to guarantee health for all. In addition, Ho answers critics who say access to care can’t be universal.

June 24 will mark the one-year anniversary since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling, taking away the constitutional right to abortion. That decision negated nearly five decades of legal precedent and pushed the abortion question to the 50 state legislatures. This week’s guests explain the effect of the ruling on women and maternal health in ways that are just now starting to be fully understood.

Dr. Herminia Palacio is president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, which seeks to expand reproductive rights and Robin Marty is director of operations at West Alabama Women’s Center, which had to cease offering abortions nearly 12 months ago.

They join hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter to discuss how women are still getting abortions in restricted states, why states’ gestational limits for abortion are dangerous and the political challenges ahead.