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These faculty members from the Department of Health Policy and Management applaud passage of health care reform legislation, but caution that while it is a step in the right direction, it is only a step. Now comes the work of implementation and training public health officials to deliver on the promise of expanded health care coverage.
For more information on the health care reform debate, sign up to attend the Foard Lecture on April 15, presented by Jeanne Lambrew, PhD, Director of the Office of Health Reform in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Jonathan Oberlander, PhD
Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management
Associate Professor, Social Medicine
This is the most important health care legislation enacted by Congress since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, and arguably the most important since Congress first took up a health reform in 1943.
This is not the end of health reform; there are struggles ahead, over repeal of this legislation, over its implementation, and over the unfinished agendas of achieving universal coverage and controlling health care spending. But there is no doubt that this legislation will substantially improve our health care system. It will make health insurance affordable for Americans of modest means and accessible to those with pre-existing conditions. It will reduce the number of uninsured and move us further down the path to covering all Americans.
It will transform Medicaid and take important steps to slow Medicare spending. It will regulate private insurance and help alleviate the problem of medical bankruptcy. This is a rare event in the history of health reform: a success story.
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Dean Harris, JD
Clinical Associate Professor
Health Policy and Management
The struggle for health reform is really a debate about our values, and about who we are as a society. In many industrialized countries, the value of social solidarity has provided the basis for systems of universal health insurance. In contrast, the value of individualism in the US has traditionally outweighed the value of social solidarity.
Under the leadership of President Obama, however, the American people have reaffirmed that individualism is not our only value, and that we will strive to create a fair and decent society for every individual and family in this country.
The new federal legislation is far from perfect, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. In fact, it is only the first step in a long process of refinement, clarification, and implementation. It is also important to remember that this legislation will still leave millions of people in the US without health insurance, and that will require further legislation. Under these circumstances, our students and faculty have the opportunity and the responsibility to continue the struggle for truly universal coverage.
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Thomas Ricketts, PhD
Professor, Health Policy and Management
Director, NC Rural Health Research Program
The vote in the House last night is a big step toward but not all the way to, universal health insurance coverage for Americans. The bills that passed represent an incremental change in how we a manage an important social contract but they are built on a strong and simple principle: All Americans ought to have access to health care.
Now is the time when we must turn the “ought to” into “will” and that obligates us to increase our effort. Despite many years of work, we are really just starting on the long and arduous job of turning potential access into appropriate care and prevention.
Doing this means careful and deliberate policy and practice. States will have to prepare and adapt their laws and regulations; academic centers like ours will have to continue to improve what we do while preparing the professionals to carry the process forward; patients and people in everyday life will have to adjust their expectations and adapt equally to this new obligation
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