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EPIDEMIC with Dr. Celine Gounder

S1E4 / Our Health System’s in Trouble / Andy Salvitt & Dan Diamond

EPIDEMIC with Dr. Celine Gounder

KFF Health News and Just Human Productions

Science, #Coronavirus, Health & Fitness, #Smallpox, Documentary, #Covid19, #Sarscov2, #Eradication, Life Sciences, Society & Culture, #Covid, Medicine

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“I think as we get testing capability out, and we get the ability to treat the population, we can't forget that there's many people that don't have the choice to self-isolate. They have to go to work every day because they get paid by the hour, and we have to do our best to keep them healthy.” - Andy Slavitt In today’s episode, co-hosts Dr. Celine Gounder and Ron Klain speak with Dan Diamond, a health journalist for Politico in Washington. They discuss what the coronavirus relief bill currently passing through Congress includes. They also discuss how conflict within the White House administration may be complicating the pandemic response in the United States. The co-hosts are also joined on this episode by Andy Slavitt, head of Medicare and Medicaid during the Obama administration. Andy speaks about how COVID-19 testing will be paid for in the United States, as well as how those without insurance or those who are undocumented will be cared for during the pandemic. He also discusses the impact that COVID-19 will have on Medicare and Medicaid, and how we can act now to build more resilience into our systems for future pandemics. Listener Q&A: What are the risks of contracting the virus via mail or via deliveries of groceries or prepared food from restaurants? Should parents limit their children's exposure to all other children, or are playdates and neighborhood interactions alright? How important will it be to expand testing in order to track the mutation rates of the COVID-19 virus? This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you. #SARSCoV2 #COVID19 #COVID #coronavirus

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Dr. Saline Gounder and I'm Ron Klain. And this is epidemic.

0:10.5

Today is for epidemic.

0:14.0

Today is Friday, March 20th.

0:17.0

In this episode, we're going to speak with Dan Diamond, a leading health journalist on what's going on right now in our health system and in

0:23.7

Washington. And we'll hear from Andy Slavitt who oversaw Medicare, Medicaid. He

0:29.5

understands how this is going to hit our health care system and our senior citizens.

0:34.0

Finally, we'll field a couple listener questions.

0:38.0

Joining us today is Dan Diamond.

0:41.0

Dan is one of the nation's leading health journalists. He covers health

0:44.5

and things going on in Washington for Politico. Thanks for joining us, Dan.

0:47.8

Ron, I'm thrilled to be here. So Dan, there's coronavirus relief coming through Congress.

0:53.2

What does phase two of the bill look like?

0:56.0

The phase two stimulus package includes a lot of different ideas that just a few weeks ago

1:00.9

would have been seen as an impossibility, the idea for some paid sick leave,

1:06.1

waiving of some mortgage payments. These are things that it's unbelievable to see this happen, but perhaps less unbelievable given the circumstances that we're finding ourselves in

1:17.7

So Dale let's play this out though. So phase two signed by the president starting to get things out there but then Congress is

1:24.6

quickly moving on to a much much larger package phase three that maybe as

1:29.3

much as a trillion dollars in aid give us the big picture of what people are going to see if Congress acts

1:36.7

on this trillion dollar package. One of the biggest concerns Ron is just the

1:41.8

cratering of industries like the airline industry or small

1:45.9

businesses. So that's a major focus, just keeping businesses that otherwise are going to see

1:52.0

massive hits in operations.

...

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