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.

The president emeritus of the Hastings Center opens his insightful essay with the observation that the American people’s faith in medical progress is boundless. In this short comment, I want to expand on his thoughts by reexamining the cardinal tenets of that faith, since they embody a set of values that distract us from building a society that promotes good health, an infinitely more difficult task than building a better sick care system.

Writing in 1780 to his friend Joseph Priestly, the British scientist, Benjamin Franklin said that with an increase in the “power of man over matter, . . . All diseases may be prevented or cured, not excepting that of old age.” The great American Revolutionary War physician, Benjamin Rush, was no less utopian in prophesying that there will someday be a “knowledge of antidotes to those diseases that are thought to be incurable.” …

The atmosphere was tense. Representatives of the insurance industry were huddled in one corner. The other members of the Task Force on Genetic Information and Insurance, mostly academics and consumer representatives, were bunched across the room. As chair of the task force, I was in the middle, trying to make sense of the disagreement, which was growing more intense by the minute.