Wayne Community College hosts health care talk Sunday
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on September 13, 2013 1:46 PM
With less than a month before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect, Wayne Community College Foundation secured a speaker to discuss the topic on everyone's lips -- "The Future of Obamacare."
Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. in Moffatt Auditorium, Dr. Jonathan Oberlander, UNC professor of social medicine and health policy and management, will talk about what lies ahead for Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and the uninsured. The lecture is free and open to the public. Doors will open at 2:30 p.m.
The topic of health care reform is confusing, said Jack Kannan, executive director of the WCC Foundation.
"He gave this talk in Chapel Hill a few months ago. There's been five or six major changes that have happened since then," he said. "He's trying to keep up with it like the rest of us."
Adrienne Northington, associate director of the Foundation, said she was in that audience in May, comprised mostly of retirees.
"But everything has changed since," she said. "Sign-ups (for the proposed health care) begin Oct. 1, so he should be able to tell us all of the latest and greatest up-to-date."
The professor has been much in demand as a lecturer on the topic of late, Kannan said, which is why the event wound up having to fall on a Sunday afternoon.
Oberlander also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Political Science. His research interests include health care politics and policy, health care reform, Medicare, American politics and public policy.
Sunday's lecture will be non-partisan, the organizers say.
"We want it to be informative, not political," Mrs. Northington said.
Following his remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.