Health care panel addresses insurance reform

Concerns over national health care reform drew a large crowd in Huntsman Hall Monday.

To address the issue, Colleges Against Cancer and Relay for Life hosted Health Care Reform and Your Future: Policy and Ethics Perspective.

The event featured Wharton School and School of Medicine professor J. Sanford Schwartz, Department of Medical Ethics chairman Jonathan Moreno, who serves as a member of President Barack Obama’s Transition Team for the Department of Health and Health Services. Carly Chizik — the Community Income Development Specialist for the East Central Division of the American Cancer Society — also spoke at the event. She is currently a staff partner of Relay for Life at Penn.

The panel mainly focused on reform in terms of health care insurance. “Right now, health insurance is very expensive and unsustainable,” Schwartz said.

The panelists also outlined the parts of the bill that pertain to students. Health care reform would mean that a person cannot be denied an insurance policy for preexisting conditions.

However, panelists noted that reform is not yet widely accepted among government officials. There have been continuous challenges in the Supreme Court and Congress to overturn the bill. Opponents question the constitutionality of the federal government’s ability to mandate spending, since the reformed policy would require every American to have health insurance, they said.

The panel addressed these concerns and attested to the importance of health care reform. “There is a moral justification for a decent minimum health care program,” Moreno said.

Many students in attendance felt uneasy about the effect of legislation on physicians and other medical professions. According to the panelists, in the future, the medical profession will not be as lucrative, but doctors will have better screening and preventative techniques to help their patients.

With these changes over time, the panelists said, there will be a slow increase in other needed specialties like geriatrics and pediatrics. “Now medicine will be socially responsible and do what is right for the patient,” Moreno said.

The discussion attracted students interested in both the medical and financial aspects of health care.

“I have a genuine interest in health care reform,” College sophomore Kavita Iyer, a health and societies major, said.

“It was great for me to learn these things in class and then apply it in a different perspective. I thought the meeting was great and the panel was very knowledgeable.”

*This article was updated to reflect that Carly Chizik is the Community Income Development Specialist for the East Central Division of the American Cancer Society as well as a staff partner of Relay for Life at Penn.

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