The National Institute for Community Health Education (NICHE) provides the public with balanced, in-depth discussion on health care issues. NICHE draws on the expertise of Connecticut hospitals, corporations and health maintenance organizations to provide this information and draw attention to Connecticut's preeminence in health care delivery, development and finance. NICHE also develops and publishes surveys on health care issues by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. The director is School of Health Sciences Dean Edward O'Connor.

Panel on health care reform

Dr. Philip Brewer

The National Institute for Community Health Education hosted the panel, "Health Care Reform: What it Means for You" on Oct. 29, 2009. University experts described some of problems plaguing the U.S. health care system and helped interpret current proposals to reform it.

Skyrocketing administrative costs -- 20 percent of the $2.2 billion price tag for health care in the U.S. -- is just one of the problems, explained John Thomas, professor of law. He sat on the panel with Cynthia Lord, associate professor and director of the physician assistant program in the School of Health Sciences, Angela Mattie, associate professor of management in the School of Business, and Phillip Brewer, M.D., University medical director. Edward O'Connor, dean of the School of Health Sciences, moderated the discussion.

Brewer described the struggle to get insurance companies to pay for services and criticized insurance executives for taking enormous salaries when millions of Americans are uninsured. Lord discussed the ways health care providers are collaborating to make patient care more effective and efficient, but stressed the patient's responsibiity to prevent costly medical problems with a healthy lifestyle.

Stanley Katz, professor emeritus of allied health sciences who attended the event, asked why the single payer system, which he favors, isn't being discussed by panelists or in national debates. Panelists explained that health care reform with a single payer system likely would not succeed. Change in health care will come in steps, said Mattie, who compared proposed health care reform bills, specifically looking at mandates, tax credits, Medicaid expansion and the highly controversial public option. "What we will get is some sort of compromise," Mattie said.