T.R. Reid
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SAL Presents

T.R. Reid

Past Event: Tuesday, October 5, 2010

At Benaroya Hall — S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

Sponsored by Swedish.

In celebration of its 100th anniversary, Swedish Medical Center is partnering with SAL to bring critical thinkers on health care issues to Seattle, including T.R. Reid and Tracy Kidder.

Topic: The Healing of America

In his presentation, T.R. Reid examines why other countries have better, fairer, and cheaper health care than the USA. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S, the richest country in the world ranks 37th overall on health care cost, quality, and coverage. After traveling the world while researching his forthcoming book, T.R. offers lessons from other countries that will help us fix our rotten health care system. One key lesson is that most foreign countries do not use socialized medicine. Japan has 99 percent private hospitals and 5,000 health insurance companies—but provides universal coverage and excellent care for less than half what we spend per capita. Another lesson is that all the proposals to date from our politicians are too timid; they are tinkering at the margins, when we ought to be revamping the system head to toe.

While he was Washington Post bureau chief in London, T.R. Reid’s daughter’s pierced ear became infected. After a brief trip to the emergency room, she was cured—and hospital staff dismissed his attempt to pay for it. For Reid, it was a transformative experience. “I started thinking, ‘Now here is a health-care system.’ And it turns out, if you go around the world, there are a lot of good health care systems.” Reid uses his own experiences as an example of the efficiency and effectiveness with which other industrialized nations provide health care. In his Frontline documentaries (“A Second Opinion” and “Sick Around the World”), as well as in his most recent book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, Reid studies how other governments provide their citizens with health care and how they pay for their systems in order to present solutions that help America. Reid wrote in The Washington Post: “As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we’ve overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they’ve found ways to cover everybody—and still spend far less than we do.”

As a National Public Radio commentator; a PBS, National Geographic, and A&E documentary film reporter and host; and a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, where he also served as Tokyo bureau chief, Reid reported from three-dozen countries on five continents. He has covered elections ranging from that of the British Prime Minister to Barton County Drain Commissioner. He has reported on the Olympics, the X-Games, the Asian Games, the Tour de France, the World Alpine Championships, and the World Chess Championship. He sailed on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise while in the U.S. Navy—and went back to the ship 30 years later to write about it for National Geographic. He was detained and interrogated by Army officers in North Korea. He was stranded in Nepal’s Khumbu region after Maoists blew up the only airport. His story revealing the secret engagement of Crown Prince Naruhito is known in Japan as the dai-sukoopu, “the great scoop.”

T.R. Reid is a New York Times bestselling author and has written six books in English and three in Japanese, including Microchip: The Story of a Revolution and the Men Who Made It (1985), Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West (2000), and The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy (2004). In 2007 he was a Kaiser Family Foundation media fellow in health. He has taught at Princeton University and the University of Michigan. Reid has been married for 37 years to the attorney Margaret M. McMahon.

Selected Work
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care (2009)
The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy (2005)
Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West (2000)
Microchip: The Story of a Revolution and the Men Who Made It (1985)
The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution (1984)

Event Details

Benaroya Hall — S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

200 University Street
Seattle, WA 98101

View directions.

Transportation & Parking

This event will be held in the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, the largest event space at Benaroya Hall. 

Benaroya Hall is located at 200 University Street, directly across Second Avenue from the Seattle Art Museum.

By Car

  • From Southbound I-5
    Take the Union Street exit (#165B). Continue onto Union Street and proceed approximately five blocks to Second Avenue. Turn left onto Second Avenue. The Benaroya Hall parking garage will be on your immediate left. The garage entrance is on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street.
  • From Northbound I-5
    Exit left onto Seneca Street (exit #165). Proceed two blocks and turn right onto Fourth Avenue. Continue two blocks. Turn left onto Union Street. Continue two blocks. Turn left onto Second Avenue. The Benaroya Hall parking garage will be on your immediate left. The garage entrance is on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street.
  • From Northbound I-5 via Westbound I-90
    Take the 2C exit for I-5 North. Follow signs for Madison Street/Convention Place and merge right onto Seventh Avenue. Turn left onto Madison Street. Proceed three blocks and turn right onto Fourth Avenue. Continue four blocks. Turn left onto Union Street. Continue two blocks. Turn left onto Second Avenue. The Benaroya Hall parking garage will be on your immediate left. The garage entrance is on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street.

By Public Transit (Bus & Light Rail)

Benaroya Hall is served by numerous bus routes. Digital reader boards along Third Avenue display real-time bus arrival information. For details and trip planning tools, call Metro Rider Information at 206.553.3000 (voice) or 206.684.1739 (TDD), or visit Metro online. The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, served by light rail, has a stop just below the Hall (Symphony Station).

Parking

The 430-car underground garage at Benaroya Hall provides direct access from the enclosed parking area into the Hall via elevators leading to The Boeing Company Gallery. Enter the garage on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street. Maximum vehicle height is 6’8″. ChargePoint charging stations are available for electric vehicles. Visit the Benaroya Hall website for event pricing.

Parking is also available at:

  • The Cobb Building (enter on University Street between Third and Fourth avenues).
  • The Russell Investments Center (enter on Union Street between First and Second avenues).
  • There are many other garages within a one-block radius of Benaroya Hall, along with numerous on-street parking options.

Accessibility

Open Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where a captioning screen displaying the words that are spoken or sung is placed on stage. This option is present at every event at Benaroya Hall in our 2021/22 Season.

Closed Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where captioning displays the words that are spoken or sung at the bottom of the video during an online event. Captioning is available for all online events; click the “CC” button to view captions during the event.

Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are devices that people with hearing loss use in conjunction with their hearing device (hearing aids or cochlear implants). Benaroya Hall has an infrared hearing system, which transmits sound by light beams. Headsets are available in The Boeing Company Gallery coat check and the Head Usher stations in both lobbies.

Sign Language Interpretation is available upon request for Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals for both in-person and online events. To make a request for interpretation, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Sign Language Interpretation” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process and we will contact you to confirm details. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation.

Wheelchair Accessible Seating and Accessible Restrooms are available in all sections at our venues, and our venues are fully accessible to ticket holders with physical mobility concerns. Among other features, Benaroya Hall has designated parking spaces adjacent to elevators in their parking garage. Elevators with Braille signage go to all levels within the Hall. To reserve seating for a specific mobility concern, you may select “Wheelchair Accessible or Alternative Seating Options” during ticket checkout, and we will contact you to confirm details. For more details on their accessibility features, click here.

Guide and service dogs are welcome.

Gender neutral restrooms are available.

We are pleased to offer these accessibility services at our venues, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders. Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. Our Patron Services Manager is available at boxoffice@lectures.org, or Tuesday-Friday, from 12 noon–5 p.m., at 206.621.2230×10.

For more accessibility information, please head to lectures.org/accessibility. If you would like to make accessibility arrangements you do not see listed here, please contact our box office or select “Other Accommodations” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process, and we will contact you to confirm details.