Type: Public event
Host: Ford School

Andy Slavitt: Preventable - COVID-19, healthcare, and the future

Speaker

Andy Slavitt, Former Senior Advisor to the Biden Administration COVID Response; Abdul El-Sayed, Towsley Policymaker in Residence

Date & time

Nov 18, 2021, 4:00-5:00 pm EST

Location

This is a Virtual Event.

While the uneven government response to the COVID-19 pandemic may have been responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths, the pandemic revealed larger issues of health inequity across U.S. society. Andy Slavitt, former Biden White House COVID-19 senior advisor and acting CMS administrator, has outlined the mistakes made, the larger picture of healthcare in America, and prescriptions for alleviating some of those problems. He will be in discussion with Towsley Policymaker in Residence and health advocate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Watch on YouTube.

About the book

From former Biden Senior Advisor Andy Slavitt, Preventable is the definitive inside account of the United States' failed response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Slavitt chronicles what he saw and how much could have been prevented—an unflinching investigation of the cultural, political, and economic drivers that led to unnecessary loss of life.

With unparalleled access to the key players throughout the government on both sides of the aisle, the principal public figures, as well as the people working on the frontline involved in fighting the virus, Slavitt brings you into the room as fateful decisions are made and focuses on the people at the center of the political system, health care system, patients, and caregivers. The story that emerges is one of a country in which—despite the heroics of many—bad leadership, political and cultural fractures, and an unwillingness to sustain sacrifice light a fuse that is difficult to extinguish.

Written in the tradition of The Big Short, Preventable continues Andy Slavitt’s important work of addressing the uncomfortable realities that brought America to this place. And, he puts forth the solutions that will prevent us from being here again, ensuring a better, stronger country for everyone. More information on the publisher's website.

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From the speaker's bio

Andy Slavitt was President Biden’s White House Senior Advisor for the COVID response. He has led many of the nation’s most important health care initiatives, serving as President Obama’s head of Medicare and Medicaid and overseeing the turnaround, implementation and defense of the Affordable Care Act. Slavitt is the “outsider’s insider,” serving in leading private and non-profit roles in addition to his government services. He is founder and Board Chair Emeritus of United States of Care, a national non-profit health advocacy organization as well as a founding partner of Town Hall Ventures, a healthcare firm that invests in underrepresented communities. He co-chaired a national initiative on the future of health care at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He chronicles what goes on inside the government and across the nation at town halls, in USA Today, on his award-winning podcast In the Bubble, and on twitter. He is the author of Preventable, a best-selling account of the U.S.’s coronavirus response, released in 2021. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Business School, he and his wife have two grown sons.