BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- The impacts of proposed health care reforms are still being sorted out and debated.

The public option insurance plan has certainly received much of the attention, but the reform bill encompasses a lot of topics within health care. It's still too early to tell how people will be impacted locally.

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Paul Hensler, CEO of Kern Medical Center said, “Reform is just a big unknown on the horizon. It could be beneficial for us, it could be a real threat for us, it just really depends on what form health care reform takes."

It's not known how the America's Affordable Health Choices Act will impact KMC, the top hospital provider of medical care to the uninsured in the county, until a bill is passed.

Hensler said, "It’s phenomenally complex. It’s very difficult for people even in the healthcare field to really understand the complete impact that various proposals would have on our system over a long period of time."

Part of the reason for the complexity, the House Bill is more than a thousand pages and sifting through the complicated language can certainly give you a headache. But the local impacts that the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have determined gives an idea as to how the house bill would fix health care in the 22nd Congressional District.

Only 17 percent or 130,000 people in the district are uninsured. Under the bill, 107,000 of them would receive coverage.

The bill is said to be a "no deficit spending" plan, although critics have scoffed at that notion. But according to the committee, half of the cost to provide 97-percent of the uninsured with health care is to be come out of making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient.

The other half will be paid through a surtax on the wealthiest Americans, for the 22nd District that means a surtax on 2,710 households.

But, Hensler said reform shouldn't just be about the uninsured, but also on fundamental health care issues.

"I think tort reform has pretty much been left out, pharmeutical reform has been left out, some of the big drivers of health care reform have been left out," Hensler said. "So, it's becoming a little bit unclear on how we can save enough in the health care system to include people who are not included in coverage in the future."

There is billions of dollars in spending in the bill, investing in the health care work force and going into prevention and wellness, like community health centers, community based-programs and local health departments.

"That would be a very good thing," said Dr. Claudia Jonah, Kern County Public Health Officer. "Because one of the things we see ourselves in public health is being the ones that can get out and on a broad basis educate the community on the things that they can do to stay healthy."

Such community based education programs have worked here in Kern County, just look at the West Nile Virus numbers. The county went from leading the nation with 140 human cases in 2007 to having just two last year.

But while the debate heats up Wednesday night and next month in congress once again, local health care personnel say they are watching, talking and contributing to the change.

"Change is not good or bad, change creates an opportunity," Jonah said "The importance is for us to share our part in making that change a good one, it's always something we look forward to doing."

For the congressional district breakdowns, visit www.energycommerce.house.gov.