Who and what gets left out when health care is driven by profit? How does "lean model management" affect public health preparedness? Code WACK! host Brenda Gazzar and Rose Roach, executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, compare racial inequities in Minnesota and the rest of the nation. Plus, what's the cost of the perverse incentives implicit in our for-profit healthcare system?

How are nurses of color impacted by racism, both on the job and in the streets? Could using weapons of war against protesters increase the spread of coronavirus? Code WACK! host Brenda Gazzar and Rose Roach, executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association, discuss the concerns nurses have today, as America struggles against both a pandemic and its racist past.

How do U.S. policies intensify the vulnerability of Black communities, including during pandemics? What caused the historical distrust between the Black community and the American healthcare system? Code WACK! host Brenda Gazzar and Janel Bailey, Co-Executive Director of Organizing and Programs at the Los Angeles Black Worker Center, discuss how public policies around eviction, employment and medical exploitation combine to harm Black workers and their families. Could Medicare for All help?

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting Black workers? What does it mean in light of the inequality the Black community already faces? Code WACK! host Brenda Gazzar and Janel Bailey, Co-Executive Director of Organizing and Programs at the Los Angeles Black Workers Center, discuss the racial inequities of "flattening the curve" and explore how shelter-in-place rules are less likely to protect black workers.

Why are people of color disproportionately affected by chronic illnesses like diabetes and asthma? Is it the individual's fault, or is it their environment? Would better health insurance help? Listen as John Kim, Executive Director of Advancement Project California and Code WACK! host Brenda Gazzar explore strategies to build trust and save lives. Plus, why universal health insurance is only part of the answer.

What's America's deadliest underlying condition? How have decades of unbridled gentrification, racial and economic segregation and discrimination intersected to keep communities of color in the eye of the pandemic in Los Angeles? John Kim, Executive Director of Advancement Project California, and Code WACK! host Brenda Gazzar examine the systemic injustices exacerbated by COVID-19. Plus, why building trust is essential to any solution.

How does it feel to risk your life just going to work, like during the coronavirus pandemic? What's the best way to tackle the PPE shortage? In this final episode in a four-part series, Dr. Philip Verhoef, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Hawaii and ICU physician, joins host Brenda Gazzar to discuss these issues, plus how South Korea's government-run healthcare system bolstered its ability to control the spread of the deadly virus.

Why was there such an uneven distribution of testing capacity in the United States and how can we address that problem in the future? How does bureaucracy impact American health care? In this third of a podcast series, Dr. Philip Verhoef, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Hawaii and ICU physician, joins host Brenda Gazzar to explore how pooling resources and minimizing bureaucracy with Medicare for All would save lives. Plus, what are the downsides to Medicare for All?

How has our fragmented healthcare system affected our ability to perform basic public health functions? What lessons can we learn from other countries with nationally-centralized electronic health records? With host Brenda Gazzar, Dr. Philip Verhoef, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Hawaii and ICU physician, takes a closer look at Taiwan's Medicare-for-All system and how it made identifying COVID hotspots faster and easier. How can the U.S. strengthen its response to future pandemics?

How can we maximize our ability to confront pandemics like the coronavirus? Which strategies are working for us, and which are failing? With host Brenda Gazzar, Dr. Philip Verhoef, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Hawaii and ICU physician, contrasts America's failure to efficiently distribute resources like PPE with the successful adoption of telemedicine - an effort led by Medicare. Learn how a unified Medicare-for-All system could have helped the U.S. better respond to the pandemic.

Subscribe to the show!