Healing America: A Prescription for Health Care Reform

Could “complexity, cost, and risk of change” be the three main factors holding back healthcare reform in the United States?

Sean’s monologue topic: The State of Healthcare in the States

Today on Coup Save America, our guest comes to us with a unique and creative way to spread awareness about our failing healthcare system. Greg Vigdor is the author of The Irv Tinsley Health Policy Detective series, a two-book collection of thrilling medical espionage that teach vital lessons while also entertaining their audience. Greg has the necessary expertise to write medical fiction with authority. He brings over four decades of experience to the table with a distinguished career spanning various leadership roles, from CEO to policy expert, advocate, manager, and consultant. Greg is the founder and president of the Washington Health Foundation and has served as President/CEO of the Arizona Hospital & Healthcare Association.

Greg introduces us to some of the themes from his two health detective novels, The Theory of Irv and The Covid Murders, that highlight the very non-fictional problems that exist in America’s real world healthcare system. He and Sean discuss talk about how the “MakeMost Health Corporation” in his second novel is an exaggeration of the reality we see when the pursuit of profits overrides adequately serving the health needs of a population. They discuss the benefits of the fictional “National Health Challenge”, and Greg describes his foundation implemented a real-world version of this event in his home state of Washington. They also discuss the viability of Irv’s 10-point “Federal Health Care Revival Act” outlined in the first novel.

As the conversation continues, Greg pulls from his lifetime of personal experience in healthcare reform to tackle Sean’s questions about common challenges to improving healthcare, disparities of care within marginalized communities, the national response to the covid-19 crisis and how that it could impact the next pandemic, the key lessons we can learn from past attempts at healthcare reform, plus so much more. 

How can we strike a balance between personal choice and government intervention in healthcare reform policies? Listen to hear Greg’s opinion on this dilemma, as well as his examples of successful local and global healthcare systems that could work at a national level.  

Tune in to Coup Save America and join the conversation on how we can heal America's health care system for the better.