Tonight before a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama will give one of the most highly scrutinized speeches of his presidency. In an effort to rally support for his health care plan, the President is expected to clearly explain what he wants in a health care reform bill.

"People will leave that speech knowing where he stands," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on ABC's "This Week."

Health care reform has drawn considerable attention this summer, from raucous town hall meetings to factually incorrect talk of government “death panels.”

Much of that attention has come from politicians and the national news media. Meanwhile, the views of those in medical community seem to fly under the radar.

In interviews this week, members of the University’s Medical School expressed concerns about the changing landscape of health care but remain optimistic about the enhanced coverage.

Nat Schuster, a third-year medical student who has been closely following developments on the issue, said many of his peers are awaiting the forthcoming legislative decisions before deciding to pursue a career in primary care.

“I think generally within the med school that people are watching excitedly about what could happen over the next few months,” Schuster said. “All the stars are aligning right now for health care reform.”

Schuster welcomed the possibility of providing universal access to health care, citing substantial need in the United States.

In 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that nearly 46 million Americans were uninsured while another 25 million were underinsured, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Schuster, a member of the Health Policy Society (POSO), a student group in the Medical School that convenes weekly to discuss issues like health care reform, is convinced that a massive overhaul in the system is not necessary to provide access to health care.

“Health care in the United States right now is a patchwork quilt of public and private payers,” he said, “and that’s not going to change.”

Dr. Mark Fendrick, an associate professor in the School of Public Health, echoed the sentiment, saying, “incremental reform is the reform that happens.”

Fendrick anticipates that any policy detailing both access to care and quality improvement will unavoidably lead to an increase in overall expenditures.

“To take on cost-containment, [universal] access and make the promise of cost neutrality to the federal budget, in terms of no new deficit creations, was a Herculean task,” Fendrick said, referencing a pledge by the president to make his health care reform plans deficit neutral over the next 10 years.

Fendrick is also the co-director of the University's Center for Value-Based Insurance Design. He said the Value-Based Insurance Design model is the type of incremental reform that he would recommend to provide for long-term cost reduction and encourage general health.

“The basic premise of Value-Based Insurance Design is to set up the situation where, instead of all doctor visits, diagnostic tests and drugs costing patients the same, we actually put strong financial and non-financial barriers in place for people to do the things that we really want them to do,” he said.

Value-Based Insurance Design has gained recognition as the model for a recent legislative proposal in the U.S. Senate designed to benefit Medicare recipients. The bipartisan proposal intends to lower out-of-pocket costs and encourage the use of high-value treatments in lieu of patients undergoing more costly procedures.

While much of the focus on health care reform has been economic and political, institutional changes to medical schools are another important factor to consider in the long term, Fendrick said.