KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with veteran journalist Steven Brill who has put together a comprehensive and, according to The New York Times, “...suitably furious guide to the political landscape of American health care circa 2014 — a tour de force inspection of both sausage and factory.

”“Mr. Brill began his muckraking early in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, with a comprehensive indictment of American health care costs that occupied an entire issue of Time magazine He continued to comment in the pages of Time on the disastrous debut of the act’s health insurance marketplaces that fall and the widespread repair work that still continues.”

 “All this reporting reappears in the book, sometimes verbatim, reframed by several new sections. At the beginning comes a long back story detailing the years of politicking that created the new legislation. At the end, Mr. Brill offers a series of personal insights provoked in large part by his recent, unexpected detour from reporter to patient, and suggestions for how it might all be fixed.”

John Marshall tells KGNU's Claudia Cragg the story of 'Wide Open World' and how he and his family needed a change. His 20-year marriage was falling apart, his 17-year-old son was about to leave home, and his 14-year-old daughter was lost in cyberspace. Desperate to get out of a rut and reconnect with his family, John dreamed of a trip around the world, a chance to leave behind, if only just for a while, routines and responsibilities. He didn’t have the money for resorts or luxury tours, but he did have an idea that would make traveling the globe more affordable and more meaningful than he’d ever imagined: The family would volunteer their time and energy to others in far-flung locales. 
 
Wide-Open World is the inspiring true story of the six months that changed the Marshall family forever. Once they’d made the pivotal decision to go, John and his wife, Traca, quit their jobs, pulled their kids out of school, and embarked on a journey that would take them far off the beaten path, and far out of their comfort zones.
 
Here is the totally engaging, bluntly honest chronicle of the Marshalls’ life-altering adventure from Central America to East Asia. It was no fairy tale. The trip offered little rest, even less relaxation, and virtually no certainty of what was to come. But it did give the Marshalls something far more valuable: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conquer personal fears, strengthen family bonds, and find their true selves by helping those in need. In the end, as John discovered, he and his family did not change the world. It was the world that changed them.

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here wih Lee Trimble. Trimble had always known that his father, Captain Robert Trimble, was a WWII hero. Captain Trimble was a fighter bomber stationed in Britain and served with honor, flying 35 missions with the 493rd Bomb Group of the US Eighth Air Force. However, when Captain Trimble was eighty-six years old, he let slip to his son that there were things that happened in the war he never told his children about—incidents that happened while he was stationed in Russia. Lee then began questioning his father for details and was shocked to uncover a secret mission his father had been ordered to keep to himself for over sixty years.

In BEYOND THE CALL, the son of Robert Trimble finally shares his father’s legacy. Robert Trimble was finishing his final mission in England and was given an option by his superiors:  go home with the possibility of being called back to the front line or take a position on the Eastern Front in Poland to help ferry damaged planes to be repaired. Captain Trimble, in consultation with his wife, waiting for him back home in Pennsylvania, reluctantly agreed to the latter. However, there was more to this mission than what Robert was told.

Near the end of World War II, thousands of Allied ex-POWs were abandoned to wander the war-torn Eastern Front. In defiance of The Yalta Convention, which required that each Allied country take in and help shepherd POWs from all Allied nations to safety, the Russians viewed their own POWs as cowards and traitors, and saw captured soldiers from other countries as potential spies. The US repeatedly offered to help recover their own POWs, but were continuously refused by the Soviets. With relations between the tenuous allies strained, a plan was conceived for an undercover rescue mission.

In total secrecy, the Office of Strategic Service (the precursor to the CIA) chose an obscure American Air Force detachment stationed at a Ukrainian airfield; it would provide the base and the cover for the operation. Captain Robert Trimble began his mission to recover downed American planes in the Polish countryside, but was soon leading his covert mission by cover of night and during downtime. Dodging his Soviet escorts known as bird dogs, undercover agents of The NKVD (the Soviet secret police), Captain Trimble followed leads given to him in secret to search for stranded American POWs and get them to safety. Outfitted with state department credentials and a vest lined with money, Captain Trimble traveled through war-torn Poland, only to discover atrocities the likes had never been seen before.

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with Ai-Jen Poo. She is the activist who, through the National Domestic Workers' Alliance, spearheaded New York’s successful Bill of Rights for domestic workers shows how we can better care for our growing elderly population and provide millions of good jobs at the same time

By 2035, 11.5 million Americans will be over the age of 85—more than double today’s 5 million—and living longer than ever before. To enable all of us to age with dignity and security in the face of this coming Age Wave, our society must learn to value the care of our elders. The process of building a culture that supports care is a key component to restoring the American dream, and, as Ai-jen Poo convincingly argues in The Age of Dignity, will generate millions of new jobs and breathe new life into our national ideals of independence, justice, and dignity.

This groundbreaking new book from the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance offers bold solutions, such as long-term care insurance and cultural change to get all of us to value care, which are already at the heart of a movement transforming what it means to grow old in the United States. At the intersection of our aging population, the fraying safety net, and opportunities for women and immigrants in the workforce, The Age of Dignity maps out an integrated set of solutions to address America’s new demographic and economic realities.