Health care reform will be the focus of two presentations presented to UT students, faculty, staff and the general public.

Dr. David Mirvis, adjunct professor of public health, will be leading two discussions on various topics revolving around health care reform both today and Wednesday.

The first lecture, entitled “Why is Health System Reform So Hard,” will take place from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. today in room 201 of the College of Nursing.On Wednesday, Mirvis will conduct a second lecture on health reform, entitled “Implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” It will take place from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the Claxton Complex, room 206.

“Why is Health Reform So Hard” will primarily be a general discussion on health care policy. The Tuesday presentation is more about the difficulty involved in health care reform. Mirvis will be discussing the nature of health care reform and the common debates and philosophies that come into play when policy makers debate the issue.

“Why is it so hard? Why can’t we do something?” Mirvis asked rhetorically. “Every time health care reform comes up, it’s just this huge battle. It seems much bigger than any other thing we try to do. … I want to explore some possible reasons for that.”

The second lecture on Wednesday will focus more specifically on the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (commonly referred to as “Obamacare”) and how it will affect Tennesseans.

Mirvis will discuss issues about coverage and decisions that the state government will need to address, such as whether to expand TennCare (the state’s health insurance policy) and the general pros and cons created by Obamacare.

Mirvis said that it is important for people of Tennessee to understand the effect of Obamacare and health care reform in general because these types of laws are going to have a major impact on Tennessee at large.

“The health care reform law is going to change the way we do business in all sorts of ways,” Mirvis explained. “Not just in understanding insurance and the uninsured but the way health care is financed, the way insurance works, everything. There’s going to be major impacts on everybody in Tennessee. This affects the whole health care system.”

Dr. Carole Myers, an associate professor in the College of Nursing, elaborated on the importance of the lectures, especially in regard to how difficult it is for health care policy to be created or changed.

“First off, health care is very personal, it’s extraordinarily complex. Health care is a major industry in our country,” Myers said. “And when we discuss what the problems are, and therefore the solutions, there’s not a singular answer. And there … certainly are major philosophical differences and perspectives.”

She added, “We need to think of reform as a process and not as a singular event.”

Myers said that it’s not necessary to see both presentations to understand the concepts Mirvis will be discussing, although she said that it could help to make them a bit clearer.

“In our mind … these two are independent presentations,” Myers explained, “and I would call them separate, but in some ways inseparable. If you want to understand the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee it helps to have an understanding of why health reform is so hard.”

With regard to the often heated element of debating health care reform, Mirvis is planning to avoid much of the political rhetoric that comes from policymakers on the right and left. Instead, he will focus on what he calls “real data” based on studies conducted in Memphis.

“We’re trying to dig it out of the political sphere and toward the real evidence sphere,” Mirvis said.