Hubwonk

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute visiting fellow Dr. Bill Smith about Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) standards and the ways in which so-called objective cost containing strategies use expert opinion to determine the value of a life and thereby disadvantage the elderly, disabled, and those with less common vulnerabilities to disease.

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Suffolk University Economics Prof. Jonathan Haughton about his research into the effects and costs attending the adoption of Project Labor Agreements in large construction projects. The discussion focuses on Prof. Haughton’s two research pieces, The Effects of Project Labor Agreements in Massachusetts, and Do Project Labor Agreements Raise Construction Costs?, and the implications of PLAs on future projects in Massachusetts.

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with author and former New York Times science journalist Nicholas Wade about his recent article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the possible origins of the SARS2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. In their conversation, they consider the possibility that, absent finding evidence of a natural jump from animals, the SAR2 virus may have come from a lab.

Host Joe Selvaggi talks with cyber security expert Dr. Brandon Valeriano about the Colonial Pipeline shutdown and our national exposure to cyberattack on vital infrastructure.

Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Executive Director Jim Stergios about HR86, the so-called Fair Share Amendment, to tax Massachusetts household income above $1 million. They discuss its promises, its costs, and the effects of similar legislation in other states.

Hubwonk Host Joe Selvaggi talks with constitutional scholar and CATO Institute Research Fellow Thomas Berry about the recently heard U.S. Supreme Court case, Mahanoy Public School District v. B.L., and its implications for free speech, school control, and the integration of social media into the rubric of first amendment protections.

Hubwonk Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Emergency Preparedness expert Dr. Paul Biddinger about how experts plan for disasters, and what went right and wrong in this pandemic.

Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Bloomberg Opinion writer and National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru about the national zeitgeist in a post-Covid, post-President Trump future.

Joe Selvaggi discusses a recently released survey from Pioneer Institute and Emerson Polling, "Massachusetts Residents’ Perceptions of K-12 Education During the Covid-19 Pandemic," with Emerson's lead analyst, Isabel Holloway, and Pioneer Institute’s Charlie Chieppo.

Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Dr. Martin Makary about how to reduce healthcare prices.

Dr. Martin Makary is a surgical oncologist and chief of the Johns Hopkins Islet Transplant Center. He is a clinical lead for the Johns Hopkins Sibley Innovation Hub and serves as Executive Director of Improving Wisely, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project to lower health care costs in the U.S. by creating measures of appropriateness in health care. Dr. Makary’s research focuses on the creation and evaluation of new health care innovations. He is the creator of the Surgery Checklist, publishing its first description and later served on the W.H.O. Safe Surgery Saves Lives committee. He led the W.H.O. workgroup to create global measures of surgical quality. Dr. Makary has published over 200 scientific articles, including the first description of “frailty” impacting surgical outcomes, the original studies on safety culture measurement in hospitals, and an evaluation of the Orphan Drug Act. He is a leading voice for physicians, writing in The Wall Street Journal, and is the author of The New York Times best-selling book Unaccountable about patient safety and physician-led transparency efforts in health care. Dr. Makary is the founder of the Johns Hopkins Center For Surgical Outcomes Research and Clinical Trials and is the recipient of numerous grants to evaluate the effectiveness of new surgical technology and new interventions in health care. He serves jointly as a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor of health policy & management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has pioneered new pancreas operations at Johns Hopkins, including the laparoscopic Whipple procedure. He performed the first series of laparoscopic islet auto-transplantation and other laparoscopic operations in field of surgery. Dr. Makary is among the few highest-volume laparoscopic pancreas surgeons in the United States. He is the recipient of the National Pancreas Foundation Nobility in Science Award. Dr. Makary is a graduate of Bucknell, Thomas Jefferson and Harvard University. He completed his surgical training at Georgetown University and his fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital.