This is the full transcript of the The Health Advocate Podcast  Episode 12: Australian and American Health Care Systems, in which AHHA Advocacy Director Krister Partel sits down with special guest Prof John McDonough from Harvard University to discuss opportunities and challenges in the Australian and American healthcare systems—including why they’re so hard to reform and how health leaders can anticipate and respond to health system challenges in the context of political change. 

John is Professor of Public Health Practice in the Department of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Center for Executive and Continuing Professional Education at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Between 2008 and 2010, John served as a Senior Advisor on National Health Reform to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions where he worked on the development and passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. From 1985 to 1997, he served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives where he co-chaired the Joint Committee on Health Care.