Tom Murray, president of The Hastings Center, discussed how and why health reform should reflect our values in an interview on NPR's Science Friday on November 6. “We wanted to start a conversation that takes a deeper look at values underlying health care and health reform,” he said. Murray made a case for universal participation—coverage for all, coupled with the responsibility of individuals to obtain it, andenabled by costs shared among individuals, employers, and government.

Host Ira Flatow said in his introduction: “Lost in the fray [of acronyms and actuarial tables] is the whole reason to have the health care debate in the first place…we’re going to try to reel it back in to talk about our values. What role do they play in shaping health care policy?” Flatow noted that in its recent collection of essays, Connecting American Values with Health Reform, “The Hastings Center has tried to bring values back into the discussion.”

Len Nichols, health policy director at the New America Foundation, also participated in the show. Nichols, a health economist who wrote an essay on stewardship for the Hastings Center collection, said that passage of the final health care reform legislation is contingent on leadership that promotes shared values. “It is sometimes true is that those values seem to differ among political antagonists….but when you probe deeply and get in a dialogue you find out the values are actually shared,” Nichols said. “I believe most people share them and therefore we will end up with a bill that moves our country forward.”