East Anchorage Book Club with Andrew Gray

Dr. Bill Sage is the Assistant Vice President of the Texas A&M Health Science Center, a professor of Medicine at the Texas A& M University School of Medicine, and a professor of Law at Texas A& M University School of Law. He has published hundreds of papers over the decades on health law and policy, and he has edited four books including the Oxford Handbook of US Health Law. He has previously been a professor of law and/or medicine at the University of Texas Austin, Columbia Law School, Yale, Harvard and NYU. Although we will be talking about American health care policy rather than specifically Alaska health care policy, our conversation is relevant since the Alaska Health Care system is a microcosm of our national health care system.

Here are links to many of the Dr. Sage's papers discussed during today's episode:

 "What the Pandemic Taught Us: The Health Care System We Have Is Not the System We Hoped We Had"

"Minding Ps and Qs: The Political and Policy Questions Framing Health Care Spending"

"Brand New Law! The Need to Market Health Care Reform"

Retired Alaska Superior Court Judge Elaine Andrews moved to Alaska in 1976 immediately upon graduating from law school. Her first job as a lawyer was with the Alaska Judicial Council, which is tasked with vetting new judges and with deciding whether or not to recommend sitting judges for retention. In Alaska, a judge must be at least 30 years old, and Elaine Andrews applied and was appointed to the bench shortly after she turned 30. She served as a full-time district court judge for 22 years and continued as a pro tempore judge part-time for another two decades after that. 

Kendra Sticka, PhD, RDN, is the Executive Director of healthEconnect Alaska, the state-designated health information exchange (HIE). In this role, she spearheads the HIE's strategic growth and operations, including its continued expansion into underserved rural and urban communities. Dr. Sticka has worked in Alaska healthcare for more than 20 years, beginning as a clinical dietitian in hospital, clinical, and private practice before transitioning into academics and education. Prior to joining healthEconnect in 2023, she served as the Associate Dean of Clinical Health Sciences at the Univeristy of Alaska Anchorage. Dr. Sticka hold master degrees in nutrition and adult education and a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology.

To access the healthEconnect website, click here. 

Rev. Matt Schultz has been the Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in downtown Anchorage for eleven years.  We discuss what Christian Nationalism is and why it’s dangerous. We also talk about Matt’s childhood, what brought him to the ministry, and how he came to be a liberal in both politics and theology.      

Rev. Schultz is leading classes starting Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 6:30 pm entitled, "The Dangers of Christian Nationalism." Additional classes will be held, Tuesday, Oct. 1  at 6:30 pm, and possibly the Tuesday after that at First Presbyterian Church, 616 W. 10th Avenue, on the Delaney Park Strip.

Dr. Lawrence Weiss founded the Masters in Public Health program and was instrumental in starting the Alaska Native Studies program at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He has a PhD in Sociology from SUNY Binghamton, but it was his postdoctoral Masters degree from Harvard in Occupational Health that moved him to Anchorage in the early 80s and led to a 35 year career in public health as a researcher, educator, writer, program evaluator and policy analyst. 

For Dr. Weiss's article on Medicare-for-All, click here.

For Dr. Weiss's article on teacher retirements, click here.

For Forbes's ranking of cost of health care by state, click here.

For NPR story on cost of chemo in Juneau, click here.

Dr. Anne Zink served as the Chief Medical Officer for the state of Alaska in Governor Dunleavy’s administration from 2019 until the Spring of 2024. She is a practicing emergency room physician who served as the emergency department medical director of the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center from 2010 to 2018. She received her medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed her emergency medicine residency at the the University of Utah.

Watch the full clip of Dr. Zink's grandfather, Albert Bartlett, here.

Rep. Jennie Armstrong of West Anchorage was first elected to the Alaska State House in 2022 but is not running for re-election. Instead, she will continue running the two companies that she founded and dedicate more time to her young family. In this Labor Day episode, she shares insights into managing staff that she has gleaned from years of first-hand experience and thoughtful exploration. Many new legislators are caught by surprise suddenly having employees who answer to them; this conversation is intended to help legislators -- and any new bosses -- run better offices through creating an environments where staff thrive.

To learn more about Jennie Armstrong, listen to her interview from 2023 for, "East Anchorage Matters."

Here is the link to Simon Sinek's TED Talk, "Why good leaders make you feel safe."

Here is the link to Kim Scott's TED Talk, "How to lead with radical candor."

Tom Begich is a former Alaska State Senate Minority Leader. After a life-long career as a singer-songwriter and political advisor, he first ran for office in 2016 to for the state senate seat held by Johnny Ellis representing downtown Anchorage. Tom did not run for re-election in 2022, but instead set up his staffer Löki Tobin to take his seat. We also discuss his childhood as the son of Congressman Nick Begich whose plane disappeared in 1972 in Southeast Alaska. We end with a contemplation of Tom Begich’s next chapter in Alaska politics.

The Alaska Delegation to the 2024 Democratic National Convention consisted of 19 voting delegates, but also party officials, pages, and others, who all traveled to Chicago last week. This episode is an attempt to capture their impressions of the convention immediately upon their return to Alaska.

The guests (in order of their appearance)

• Jessica Cook
• Rep. Andy Josephson
• Brenda Knapp
• Rep. Genevieve Mina
• Rozlyn Grady Wyche
• Sen. Bill Wielechowski
• Veronica Slajer
• Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson
• Mike Wenstrup
• Kimberly Metcalfe
• Jacob Begich
• Monica Southworth
• Lindsay Kavanaugh
• Fauna Hunt
• Jasmine Carter
• Sen. Löki Tobin
• Chuck Degnan

Representative Zack Fields has represented downtown Anchorage in the Alaska state house for the past 6 years. He began his work in Alaska in 2012 doing political work first through the AFL/CIO and later as communications director for the Alaska Democratic Party. In Governor Bill Walker's administration, he served as Workforce Development Coordinator for the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. He is currently a union organizer for the Laborers Union Local 341. We discuss his childhood, how he became an activist, and what got him involved in unions in particular.