I fear two things as a young health policy researcher: health care costs that grow faster than the economy and the flashing red light on my phone.

"You've got voicemail" triggers a series responses in my brain: "You've got work," quickly followed by the gut fear of "You screwed up," topped off with a dash of "Why weren't you at your desk," anxiety.

The last time I entered the last two digits from the years the Cleveland Indians won the World Series into my phone, I was expecting a request for PowerPoints. What I got was "Chris."

Chris is a nurse in middle America. She'd seen slides from an event my boss participated in about health reform, and wanted to talk. She was worried about Medicare financing. And she had some thoughts about who the uninsured really were, and hoped I'd call her back to discuss.

Given the tone of the health care debate this summer, I called Chris half-expecting to be told I was some sort of actuarial anti-Christ -- a faceless bureaucrat bent on killing her Grandma or cutting Medicare.

Instead I was a reminded of why we're doing this.

Chris, it turns out, lives in a western Ohio community so conservative that the local newspaper once protested against a public library on the libertarian grounds that if a person wanted a book they could buy it. I'm sure that many of Chris's neighbors are fearful and even angry after all the health reform misinformation they've heard all summer. But Chris sees everyday how our system works, and doesn't work. Health reform doesn't scare her. It's the alternative of doing nothing that's got her worried.

We talked briefly about some Medicare cost projections she'd seen. They painted an unsustainable picture of Medicare's finances and future. Like most facts and figures in public policy, they're true enough, depending on the assumptions you're willing to make and the point you're trying to prove.

Numbers are important, but frankly the case for health reform right now doesn't need yet another fact or figure as much as it needs people like Chris.

Chris has been a nurse for many years and presently works in hospice. She also teaches a class on medical ethics. She's seen patients suffer needlessly and watched friends and family members be offered treatments that would cost a lot but she, as a nurse, believes would not reverse the inevitable. The controversy over "Death Panels," makes her furious, but not for the reasons Sarah Palin intended.

Chris has insurance through her husband's employer. It's good, but it's expensive, and she worries about how her college-age children will able to pay for health insurance when they get out of school. She's tired of a system where no one knows the real costs or benefits of care. She'd like a few less MRIs and a few more face to face discussions between patients and their doctors and nurses about what's best for them.

Chris’s 25-year-old son practically breaks down in tears when the real health care debate appears to be derailed by misrepresentations. Chris’s son has friends in their twenties who forgo their medications for illnesses such as multiple sclerosis and infectious diseases because they have no health care and they can’t afford the emergency rooms.

Chris knows health reform needs to happen, but she worries that it won't, and she's frustrated by the people who can't see past partisan ideology to examine the problems and come up with solutions.

Fortunately for Chris, there are people working seriously on health reform who want many of the same things. Unfortunately, these people don't hear enough from people like Chris and the majority of Americans who share her concerns and hopes for health reform. Gun-toting protesters make cable news. Chris makes a phone call to a stranger who seems like they might listen. It's these calls that matter, and it's these questions that the President, Congress and health reform need to answer.