Join Host Joe Selvaggi and Harvard Professor Chase Harrison as they discuss polling methodology and what errors in 2020 reveal about voting during COVID-19 and changing attitudes toward pollsters.
Guest:
Chase Harrison is Associate Director of the Harvard Program on Survey Research and Preceptor in Survey Methods in the Department of Government. Chase served as Director of Research Computing Services and Principal Survey Methodologist at the Harvard Business School, where he was responsible for developing and maintaining core resources in the social sciences. As a survey researcher, Chase had designed, directed, and analyzed surveys in a variety of settings and with a variety of populations since 1991. He received his MA (Survey Research) and Ph.D. (Political Science) from the University of Connecticut.
Hubwonk Host Joe Selvaggi and Emerson Polling’s Spencer Kimball discuss the polling industry’s failure to reliably anticipate election results in 2020. Where were the largest errors, what may have been the reasons, and what should consumers of polling data consider when interpreting data?
Guest:
Spencer Kimball, Emerson College Assistant Professor, teaches Political and Sports Communication courses in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. He is the director of Emerson College Polling and an advisor for the Emerson Pre-Law Society and the Emerson College Polling Society. Kimball’s primary research focus is in Survey Methodology and the testing of data collection methods. His research has been published in top-tier journals and he has presented his work at conferences and workshops around the globe. He offers commentary for media outlets on his methodology and latest election polls, for MSNBC, Fox News, Harpers Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, the National Journal, and NPR.
Join Host Joe Selvaggi as he discusses with Harvard Professor Bob Blendon his New England Journal of Medicine Special Report, “Implications of the 2020 Election for U.S. Health Policy,” which covers broad differences in both parties’ view of the role of government in healthcare and what the election results will mean for Americans.
Guest Interview:
Join Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi and Pioneer Institute’s Bill Smith as they discuss with inspirational public health advocate Gunnar Esiason the findings of his latest white paper, “Antimicrobial Resistance: Learning From the current health crisis to inform another.” The episode looks at the challenges to global health presented by evolving drug resistant diseases and how the lessons learned from COVID-19 could potentially save millions of lives.
Interview Guest:
Gunnar Esiason is a cystic fibrosis and rare disease patient leader, a MBA second-year student at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and is working towards a Master of Public Health degree at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Prior to Tuck, Gunnar received a BA form Boston College in 2013 and maintains the roles of patient advocate and director of patient outreach at the Boomer Esiason Foundation. His health policy opinions have been featured in Newsweek, The New York Daily News, The Hill, STAT News, and Morning Consult among other news sources.
Join hosts Joe Selvaggi and Pioneer Institute’s Mary Connaughton, and guest, former Mass. Secretary of Transportation Jim Aloisi, as they discuss the I90 Allston Multimodal Project, its long-term benefits, and their concerns for the metro west commuters and communities during the project’s decade-long construction.
Interview guest:
Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Andrew Mikula and Retailers Association of Massachusetts’ Jon Hurst about the state of small business in Massachusetts six months into the pandemic. They discuss the observations and recommendations of Pioneer’s new report, “The Long View: A Public Policy Roadmap for Saving Small Businesses During the COVID-19 Recovery Period.”
Interview Guest
Hubwonk Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro about his new book, Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court. The episode equips listeners with historical context to better understand the makeup of the Court, the nomination process, and the impact of a new justice on the Court.
Join host Joe Selvaggi as he discusses Ranked Choice Voting with former Federal Election Commissioner Lee Goodman. As a recognized national expert in election administration, Commissioner Goodman offers a deep dive on the contours of ranked choice voting, including the benefits and challenges moving to the new system would offer Massachusetts voters.
Guest:
Lee Goodman served as Chairman and Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), where he successfully led the rulemaking to conform the agency’s regulations to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions and championed free speech on the Internet and free press rights. He previously had served as legal counsel and policy advisor to the Governor of Virginia and Attorney General of Virginia, and associate general counsel of the University of Virginia.
Join Joe Selvaggi and Pioneer Institute’s executive director Jim Stergios for a conversation with Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby about the lawsuit against the Massachusetts Governor’s executive orders. They will explore what can be learned from the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what must be considered when devising a new way forward.
Related commentary:
The Boston Globe (Columnist Jeff Jacoby): “Baker’s pandemic orders were tough. Were they lawful?“
Commonwealth magazine (Pioneer Executive Director Jim Stergios and MA State Senator Ryan Fattman): “Executive branch overreach, blanket orders having harmful effects“
Join host Joe Selvaggi and his guest Dr. Bill Smith as they discuss the complex incentive structure between drug manufacturers, health plans, and pharmacy benefit managers. In this episode, they focus on how drug rebates work and how a system intended to optimize value may actually deliver higher costs and fewer choices. Joe and Bill also use this framework to speculate on the price of a COVID-19 vaccine, and who will likely pay for it.
Guest:
Join host Joe Selvaggi as he talks with Hannah Mamuszka, expert in diagnostic science, about the state of COVID-19 testing technology and its implications for a safer return to school and work in the fall.
Hannah Mamuszka is Founder & CEO of ALVA10, a healthcare technology firm. Hannah has spent her 20+ year career in diagnostics – both in pharma and at diagnostics companies, in the lab and on the business side. She believes that the challenges of diagnostic technology fully impacting patient care are more commercial than technical, and conceived of ALVA10 to create a mechanism to pull technology into healthcare by aligning incentives through data. She regularly speaks on issues regarding advancement of technology in healthcare, is on the Board of Directors for two diagnostic companies and writes a column on the value of diagnostics for the Journal of Precision Medicine.
Join Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi as he speaks with Firefly Health President Fay Rotenberg and Primary Care Doctor and Co-Founder Jeff Greenberg as they discuss the promise and potential of virtual primary care to deliver direct doctor access, price transparency, and more holistic healthcare that may revolutionize the healthcare system.
Guests:
Jeff Greenberg, MD, MBA is primary care physician and Firefly Health co-founder. Jeff spent nearly a decade practicing primary care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is on faculty at Harvard Medical School.
Join Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi as he talks with Chris Abkarians and Mikhil Argawal, co-founders of LeverEdge, about how their new student loan platform uses loan aggregation and competition to secure better rates for student loans.
Guests:
Chris Abkarians is a co-founder of LeverEdge, the first collective bargaining group for student loans. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and received degrees in Public Policy and Political Science from Duke University.
Join host Joe Selvaggi and co-host Rebekah Paxton of Pioneer Institute as they talk with Harvard Medical School Professor Benjamin Sommers on the most current scientific observations regarding the health and safety of reopening schools. The episode looks at the risks to students, teachers, administrators, and the public at large from the novel coronavirus, and offers ideas for optimizing outcomes in the fall.
Dr. Benjamin Sommers is a practicing primary care internist, and he is also Professor of Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. From 2011-2012, he served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and he served part-time in an advisory role from 2013-2015. His current research projects focus on barriers to health care access among low-income adults, insurance markets, and the health and economic effects of state Medicaid policies. He received a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard and an MD from Harvard Medical School.
