GETTING INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL--

Thank you to everyone who could come listen to the show. I certainly learned alot. And of course, thank you to our very special panelists, Dr. Lane, Dr. Lord, and Dr. Latham-Sadler. For any questions about post-bac programs and funding opportunities please visit aamc.org.

APPLYING TO MEDICAL SCHOOL? HEAR FROM THE EXPERTS!!!

Dr. Deacon invites you!

Please tune into the medical radio talk show, Dr. Deacon, on Monday, March 22nd at 6pm. Dr. Deacon will feature a panel discussion about applying to medical school with your host Ivie Okundaye. Listen to undergraduate advisors and a medical school dean for personalized feedback about the strength of several applicants and key tips to getting you into your dream school!

Our Panelists are:

Dr. Hugo Lane, Biology Department, Wake Forest University

Dr. Brenda Latham-Sadler, Office of Student Services, Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Dr. Pat Lord, Biology Department, Wake Forest University

*Also, post any questions you have for the panelists here on the website or email me at okunio7@wfu.edu.

Please join Dr. Lane, Dr. Latham-Sadler, Dr. Lord and me (Ivie) next Monday at 6:00 pm. Listen live online at radio.wfu.edu.

RECAP of "OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE POLICY"

Missed the show? Look below to get a recap of the facts and a few of Dr. Michael Lawlor's responses at Dr. Deacon.

Barack Obama outlines three goals for health care reform.

• 1. Barack Obama will make health insurance affordable and accessible to all:

  The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors and plans to implement the
  

• 2. Obama will lower health care costs.
  

• the Obama plan will lower health care costs by $2,500 for a typical family by investing in health information technology, prevention and care coordination.

• 3. Promote public health:

  Obama and Biden will require coverage of preventive services, including cancer screenings, and will increase state and local preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.
  
  ~mybarackobama.com

**DR. LAWLOR ANSWERS A FEW QUESTIONS**

1. Please describe the basic elements of current American national health care policy?

Health care reform is a very complicated topic and one that varies across time and place. Two goals that any health care system tries to meet are:

1. coverage and access to care for the largest number of patients possible; and

2. delivering health care to these patients as efficient and low-cost a fashion as possible.

There are other aspects of health care reform, but these two goals are the agreed upon object to such a policy by most researchers, political groups, and citizens. Unfortunately, the United States fail miserably on both heads.

1. we have the most expensive system in the world, spending more absolutely, and relative to our economies greater productivity, than any other industrialized nation. Also, we get less for this in most measures of public health compared to those lower spending countries. So our national average infant mortality, life span and rate of incidence and death of various diseases is lower than that of most industrialized countries.

2. And we also offer coverage to a smaller percent of our citizens that most other countries. Right now we have approximately 47 million uninsured Americans despite spending 16% of our GDP on health care.

3. Another less publicized threat in the U.S. is the growth and expense of the Medicare and Medicaid programs in the Federal Budget. They represented 4.6% of GDP this year, and costs per beneficiary in those programs has risen2.5 percentage points faster than per capita GDP over the last 4 decades. If it continues to grow this much in excess of GDP, federal spending on Medicare would reach 20% of the DP by 2050 and almost all of the Federal Budget. If instead Medicare and Medicaid costs per capita just grew at an equal rate as the growth of GDP, then spending on those programs would reach 7% by 2050. That is one way of predicting the effect of our aging population as the baby boomers retire. Much greater this is the extra cost due to each one of the aged boomers costing more. If historical trends continue, less than one-fifth of that cost would be due to aging.

2. What challenges does Obama face in meeting the three goals for health care policy?

The U.S. health-care system displays two overwhelming characteristics that need reform by Barack Obama's historic administration.

1.We spend far more as a nation on health care, and get less for it in demonstrable heath outcomes, than any other modern nation.

2. It is a shame and a failure on a grant national scale that despite this high spending 47 million American citizens are uninsured for health care...

Obama has not proposed any serious plans to deal with the first problem. But soon, the rising cost of Medicare will force the American people to deal on some level with this issue....An Obama administration can be expected to sign into law a bill already passed by Ocngress and vetoed by President Bush: the expansion of the the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Second, he can be expected to revisit the Medicare prescription drug bills prohibition on Medicare negotiating directly with drug companies for lower prescription drug prices. Third, his administration is likely to abandon the efforts made by the Bush Administration to subsidize private insurance for Medicare enrollees in the Medicare advantage program.

3. How is this information about Obama's Health Care Plans valuable for college students, particularly at Wake Forest? Under Obama's plan, what do we students stand to gain and lose?

Your lifetime will see the playing out of these reforms or the continual problems with health care if it s not reformed.Ways that it will definitely affect the average Wake student are:

1. your payroll deductions for MEDICARE and Medicaid
2. your own insurance
3. some 15% of the population will end up working in the health care field now. This will probably grow in the future.

Wake students will gain in two ways:

1. You and your fellow citizens will possibly all have access to health care. The fact that graduates of Wake on average make above median outcomes mean that they may not profit directly from having insurance (although you never know), because they would have it anyway. So it will be more of a psychic benefit.

2. Some economists think the competitiveness of our economy may depend on health care reform. That is, that we cannot be globally competitive and efficient in production if the health care system costs too much or that inputs of labor are not allocated efficiently because of job lock.

Dr. Deacon PREMIERS!!!

Tune in for the premier of the *Dr. Deacon* talk show--this Wednesday, November 19, 2008, at 2 pm.

OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE POLICY:
President Elect Barack Obama has promised American's accessible, affordable coverage and reduced health care costs for families. How can he do this ? Is Obama up to the challenge? Find out as our first guest speaker, Dr. Michael Lawlor, gives us the facts about Obama's health care plan and reveals to us what is at stake for Americans. Dr. Michael Lawlor is the director of the Health Policy Administration minor at Wake Forest University and is a professor of Economics at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical School.

*Join the conversation with me and Dr. Lawlor online at radio.wfu.edu. Click "Listening Live".*

About *Dr. Deacon*

Dr. Deacon is a talk show featuring discussions about medicine, science and discovery. With Wake Forest University Radio support, the show hopes to serve a growing audience of Wake Forest University students and faculty every two weeks. The show will air bi-monthly on Wednesdays at 2pm. Dr. Deacon is produced and hosted by me, Ivie Okundaye. I will often try to select very interesting, and timely topics. Watch out, because I LOVE adding controversy to our conversations so that we may test our thoughts, ideas and hunches together along with prominent Wake Forest faculty as guest speakers. With drdeacon.blogspot.com, you can search among the archived audio files of the shows, and listen in at your leisure. You may also get a sneak peak at topic discussions for upcoming shows. Please feel free to post question or topic requests directly on the website. I look forward to them!