A panel of experts addressed the need for health care reform Wednesday, with various panelists giving historical background to the issue, statistics and opinions as to the best route to take.

Dr. Richard Rieselbach, faculty member at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, said there is a clear need for health care reform, citing a survey of Wisconsin physicians.

“We are the people on the front lines,” Rieselbach said. “We are the people that deal with the dysfunctional health care system that we have.”

Most panelists agreed the high cost of health care is one of the most important and telling problems of the national health care system.

According to Gordon Derzon, a health care administrator of 40 years, 25 of which have been with University Health Services, the federal legislation has primarily focused on providing heath insurance funding for those that are not insured or do not have access to health care, but it hasn’t focused on how to provide the care at a reasonable cost.

Derzon added community health centers are one option to provide affordable health care to a wider array of people.

The cost to provide care at community health centers is estimated to be 41 percent less than other venues, he added.

Professor of history of science and medicine Ron Numbers gave the health care reform debate a historical context, showing how concern over the cost of heath care was present in the past.

Numbers said health care advocates have always underplayed the cost of health care in the past.

“If history shows us anything it’s that it will cost more than people are talking about to bring the type of health care reform that most Americans now want,” Numbers said.

Nicole Safar, legal and policy analyst with Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin, said the cost of health care has had a serious impact on women.

“Twenty-one million women and girls do not have access to care in this country,” Safar said.

Safar also said women pay 68 percent more out of pocket than men for health care costs, something she said is “startling.”

Safar stressed the need to address the health care problem soon, since the financial burden for health care is falling heavily on women and their children.

Professor of population sciences Tom Oliver showed how the health care problem is more nuanced and complicated than people think, adding the public misunderstands certain aspects of health care reform.

Oliver said the problem is that a mere reform of policy will not get affordable and accessible health care because various other societal changes need to take place.

A better infrastructure for health care has to be created — one with a more effective system for diagnosis, better communication for patient information and fewer medical errors committed by otherwise skilled physicians operating under wrong assumptions about the effectiveness of their care, Oliver said.

He added there needs to be ways to ensure continuity of doctors for patients, so the doctor knows the patient’s health history.