With health care reform discussions further dividing the country, Phaedra Corso, University department head and associate professor of Health Policy and Management, provides a unique perspective on the issue.

Why is health care a contentious topic at this point in time?
People are getting upset because we all have a stake in the outcome. What’s on the table right now is whether the government should play a larger role in our health care – that’s where you see people coming down on different sides of the issue.

There are people who are against the government coming in, and there are those who think the government should be more involved.

What do the proposals under consideration entail?
The legislative proposals for health care out there right now aren’t very different. They all talk about having an individual mandate that requires people to get health insurance and having a requirement for large employers to offer health insurance to their employees. The controversy is centered on the possibility of having the public option.

This public option would be similar to Medicaid or Medicare, and would be open to anyone who needs help getting health insurance under an individual mandate. The question is: should this be a government-run entity, or should it be some sort of cooperative exchange that may be a non-profit?

Because you’re seeing public support for health care reform decreasing over the last couple of weeks, my guess is that the public option will be taken off the table when Congress comes back into session. I think they’re going to start moving toward discussions of a non-profit Health Exchange as an alternative.

What are the pros and cons of the public option?
On one hand, many people believe that Medicare and Medicaid are public systems that run efficiently – because they aren’t for profit, they don’t require marketing and they don’t make health officials rich. Then those people would most likely be in support for a public option.

On the other hand, people who are against the public option would say if you have a new public system created by government and run by government, you’re asking that entity to compete with the private sector and setting up a system whereby the private health industry may go out of business. I think conservatives are worried that if that happens, you have essentially taken out private market-based health care options, and you have moved closer to a government-run system.

If you look at the legislation at the end of the day, many pieces are not going to be passed. Instead, I think there will be incremental changes to our current system.

How would reform affect health care and insurance for students and recent graduates?
There are conditions in the legislation that would allow parents to maintain their children as “dependents” until the age of 26. That would have a huge effect on student populations because recent graduates who haven’t found that first job might be able to qualify for insurance under their parents’ plans.

What else should students know about the issue?
I want there to be an emphasis that this does not have to be a Republican versus Democrat discussion.

Most people agree that we don’t have a perfect system, and instead of trying to talk about what we disagree on, maybe a better tactic from our politicians would be focusing on what we do agree on.