The Health Care Reform – “The Obama Plan”

What is one of the biggest battles in modern history of the US? - The attempt to reform the health care system. What to do with the 30 million uninsured citizens sparks a heated debate with most agreeing that the current system is in need of a major overhaul. However, the inability to agree on how to reform and what to reform has already proven fatal to the reform of Bill Clinton's administration. Nowadays there is a new reform initiative on the way led by Barack Obama.

The new proposal was officially introduced on Wednesday September 9 by president Obama at a joined session of Congress. The main reasoning for his proposal was the rising cost of health care which he quoted as costing almost twice as much as in other developed countries. His main goals are long term cost reduction, protection of families from bankruptcies caused by health care costs, expansion of choices of coverage providers, increased investment in prevention, providing medical coverage also for pre-existing medical conditions and most importantly, providing health care coverage for all. This plan should bring significant advantages to the consumers of health care – insurance companies should not be able to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions and there should be no limit on the amount of coverage one can receive, there should be a limit set to how much a patient will pay for his treatment and finally, routine check-ups and prevention should be covered at no extra cost.

However, as nice as Obama’s plan may sound, there are several controversies connected with his plan. The first issue many people have with this plan is the obligation to be insured which Americans are not used to. To help achieve full coverage, businesses would be required to either to offer coverage to its employees or to contribute to it. For people who would still not be able to afford it there should be a so called “hardship waiver”. The second issue is whether there should be a public option or not. Along with issues such as abortion and illegal immigrants’ coverage the main problem for passing of this bill will probably be the cost of such reforms. Obama boldly promises that his health care plan will not add to the US government deficit. All costs should be made up in savings in the current system – basically, the system should pay for itself. Waste and inefficiency reduction in Medicare and Medicaid along with revenues from drug and insurance companies should pay for the plan.

Whether this plan will be ultimately passed is a big question. Drug and insurance companies, opposition and also many Democrats have objections to this plan. And with the falling public support for Mr. Obama passing a bill before the next Congressional election might not be viable even with Obama trying to do everything, including using Edward Kennedy’s name, to support this bill.

By Lucie S.

Sources:
White House.gov
CNN Edition September 10, 2009