Health care debate at GR colloquy

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Major reforms need to be made across the health industry, according to professionals at Monday night's discussion at Grand Valley State's Grand Rapids' campus.

The problem, all agreed, is how to make and implement all the changes the fragmented system needs.

"I would love to have it all," said Peter Ubel, a primary care physician and a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.

"I would love to have better health care and lower taxes."

Ubel was one of the speakers at the DeVos Medical Ethics Colloquy, "Rationing vs. Rationalizing Health Care."

He knows lower taxes and better health care isn't likely, he said, so the next best thing is to ration existing health care.

"We need to find a way to control health care costs but still offer excellent health care," Ubel said. "It can be done, but only if we rationally discuss when to set limits and when to give people what they need."

Ubel and Harvard professor of ethics and population health Norman Daniels addressed more than 100 health care professionals in Grand Valley State University's Hagar Auditorium, to discuss why and how health care can be fixed.

"What we need to do is find a way to get the right care to the right people at the right cost," Ubel said.

Said Daniels: "We do need an overhaul of the entire U.S. system," so scarce medical resources are better allocated and so the highest number of Americans get the best quality of health care possible.

Both lower insurance premiums and broader health coverage were a few of the goals mentioned at the discussion. But major changes need to happen to achieve any reform in the system.

Changes are necessary, experts said, because the health care system as it is now is not sustainable.

"Change is a-coming we have the ability to make that change better or worse," Ubel said.

Both speakers at the meeting brought up the need for regular Americans not in the health care field to get involved in the discussion, so they can make their own informed opinions about health issues.

The next colloquy will take place in September and address vaccinations.