News > October 2, 2008

By Wasif Huda | Contributing writer

The university held a panel discussion on Sept. 25 on health policy reform, which is currently one of the top concerns of voters and will surely have an effect on the elections in November. Health polic scholar Jonathon B. Oberlander of UNC-Chapel Hill opened the event, in Annenberg Forum in Carswell Hall.

The opening was followed by presentations regarding the complexity of this issue by three panelists: Professor of Law Mark Hall, Allison Snow-Jones and Professor of Economics Michael Lawlor.

“The panel discussion was put on to help understand this extremely important issue and will also help (understanding) for this election year,” Nancy King, professor for the department of social science and health policy from Wake Forest School of Medicine, said.

She added, “It’s one that keeps coming back around, and we try to progress on it, but somehow we still end up in the same place … Its time to think carefully about why we have the system we do.” King was one of the organizers of this event.

Oberlander opened the dialogue with the following statistic: 46 million Americans are without health insurance, and some people who are insured are actually underinsured.

Medical costs are the biggest cause for bankruptcy in America. With exposure to such data, an individual is bound to ask how this is possible in America.

“Health care service is not the only factors influencing America’s health, there are a lot of complicated things that are not being addressed.” Chris Coughlin, professor from Wake Forest Law School, said.

Coughlin also helped organize the event . “However, this does highlight the point on the lack of preventive health care, because people are only paying attention when they are sick.”

“And part of why there is little preventive health care is because it’s hard to identify the cost and saving for the prevention,” King said. “The foresight required in the process is enormous; therefore, economic alone will not solve this problem.”

Half of Oberlander’s presentation focused on politics: how McCain’s and Obama’s parties tackled this health insurance problem. Oberlander explicated the necessary details that made the approaches of the two parties different toward the same problem and the possible consequential effect each could have on America.

Furthermore, Oberlander made a comparison of this issue to the movie Groundhog Day. He explains it’s because he keeps waking up thinking it’s 1992, when America was also facing a health insurance crisis, and the Democratic and Republican parties advocated solutions that are very similar to what the respective parties are suggesting today. While Oberlander’s presentation focused on the health insurance problem with relations to the political parties. The three panelists respectfully attempted to explain the problems with the current system in place, the pre-existing problems and the barriers at hand if there is a fundamental change.

“Economists are shocked how insurance market doesn’t work in a competitive market,” said Michael Lawlor, professor of economics at the university. In a world where free competitive capital market has brought so much success for the rapidly globalizing world, the problems surfacing with health insurance companies are perplexing economists with strong faith in the free market everywhere.

To further understand this dilemma, the dialogue not only attempted to look into the structural problems of the system but also at who it is affecting – more specifically, the characteristics of the 46 million Americans without health insurance. The data showed 80% are employed, 33% can’t afford it and 10% are young and low-risk.

However, the take home point from this presentation is that most who can’t afford insurance are below the poverty line, immediately indicating that a good portion of the 37 million Americans living below the poverty line are equated in the percentage.

This also leads to questions surrounding the remaining eight million uninsured, some of whom may be young and risk free, and most of whom are in the middle class.

In addition, those who are insured may be under-insured.

“The private market has shown a consistent and long tem inability to cover these groups,” Lawlor said.

“I don’t think you can have one without the other. Both are necessary, and the other isn’t sufficient by itself,” King said.

And in terms of the election Oberlander said, “Well, we have failed at health reforms before. Is anything different this time around? Can the two parties really make the difference?”