Obama’s Health Care Plan:
Views of Both Sides
By: Angelina Springs and Samuel Scott
Barack Obama’s health care plan reaches out to help all people. The plan is broken down into three parts: quality and affordable, lowering costs in the health care system, and making public health stronger. Let’s take a look at the good and the bad of each part.
Obama plans to create a health insurance plan much like Medicaid, except it will be open to people who do not have insurance under an employer and small companies who do not have a private plan of their own. The government will create a “National Health Insurance Exchange,” which means the government will sell insurance to people who are not able to get insurance through an employer. It will also be mandatory that parents get full coverage for their children whether the insurance is private or public. Children will be allowed to be under their parents’ insurance until 25 years of age. Insurance plans that are already created, such as Medicaid and Chip, will also be expanded and more flexible as far as eligibility. This quality plan will insure that people can transport their insurance over to the next job, but only when it is purchased through the “National Health Insurance Exchange” or the new public plan that would be created. Unlike McCain, Obama will see that everyone is covered by a mixture of government and private plans, not just by one single plan.
Americans will be able to choose their own doctor and other insurance companies will be more beneficial without the government getting in the way. It is understood that not many Americans want to give up their private health care plans, so it is important for Obama to increase the number of private health care plans. Obama has required that all medium and large companies provide coverage or they have to pay a tax. He will extend tax credits to people who cannot afford to pay their premiums. A “Small Business Health Tax Credit” will be created for small businesses. It guarantees small businesses a refund up to 50 percent in tax credits. They must offer their employees quality insurance and pay a decent portion of the employees’ health premiums. Of course with all good things come bad things. Since Obama’s main concern is to get everyone health insurance, he must spend an ample amount of money a year to ensure that everyone will be able to afford a good private plan or be able to get a public plan. It would cost Obama $50 billion to $67 billion a year if the plan is implemented fully. This imposes an important question. Where will Obama get the money to pay for this if we are already in a huge deficit?
Obama says that he will control costs, if not reduce costs with his health care plan. The people want to know how? By expanding government control on health care, he believes that costs will decrease. If the government reinsures employers health care plans, the costs that employers pay will go down. The bad thing about this is that the cost is not going away. It is just being shift from the employer to the government. How can the government spend money that they do not have? The government could just keep borrowing money as they’ve done in the past, but sooner or later they are going to have to pay the money back. The positive aspect of this idea is that Obama is trying to strengthen laws so that insurance companies cannot over charge physicians and lower patient visit costs. The investment he puts into health information technology also is making progress towards lowering costs. The process is moving along slowly, but surely. The insurance markets would be made competitive to promote more competition to companies and Obama would set a price floor for insurers. Obama also plans to legalize the import of medications from drug companies. He also wants generics to be competitive on the market. If Obama encourages the use of generics than it will be harder for drug companies to give generics money to stay off the market. Obama must first control the cost before he can do anything about lowering them. With these containment ideas, it seems as if Obama is going to do a fine job of just that. It is not going to be easy to get control of the costs. One way would be to use your political authority to your advantage over the key stakeholders. Obama does not agree with this because the key is to get the stakeholders on your side not against you.
Obama emphasizes how important it is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. He alone cannot make the change. The people of America must also get involved and realize that health is very important. They have to know that eating the right foods, exercising, and not smoking is imperative to sustaining a healthy lifestyle. Employers can help by offering health programs and having nutritious food in the cafeteria. The school systems can also contribute by making the school lunches healthier. Obama and Biden will work together to get more health programs and clinical services for the schools. They also will provide financial support for physical education. Not only will they provide financial support for schools, but also for the workforce to. They will increase funding, which will include grants, training to improve working conditions, etc.
The big question here is how will all of this affect the economy? The economy will be affected in so many ways. The rate of health care inflation would actually increase due to the significant amount of money it would take to fund such an endeavor. This means that the government would have to intervene even more than before. The United States government has already subsidized funding to help rebuild the crashing mortgage situation and is currently being looked to, to repair the financial hits that the automobile industry has endured. Government’s support of these plunging areas of the economy does not leave very much room in support of implementing a “universal” healthcare plan. An immediate outlook for the economy will probably show that Obama’s healthcare plan is one that is much needed but given the many debts the country is already in it will be hard. However, finding a healthcare solution that incorporates a larger portion of United States citizens especially children, will in the long run be an investment that will be advantageous. Increasing the number of people regularly visiting the doctor and taking care of smaller health issues will cause the overall health of society to improve; obesity in children will decrease. Additionally, think of a situation when a mother who has no health insurance has to take their child to the emergency room because of a broken arm. Some families don’t have to worry about this issue as much because they just pay their co-pay, but for a family with no insurance, paying the emergency room bill can make it impossible to pay this month’s rent or pay for the electric bill. Individual families as well will spend less money per year funding healthcare, “The Lewin Group projects that the average savings per family would be $426 per year.” The money that is saved from spending on healthcare is money that can be allocated toward other areas of the market which will stimulate the economy.
Obama’s healthcare initiative is one that is setting the bar extremely high for this country, but also a plan that strives to reach not only those who can afford healthcare but those who deserve it, which is every citizen. As many aspects of the free market are extremely flexible, the medication market has become too focused on money and not what’s in the best interest of the people, Obama states, “In the richest nation on Earth, it is simply not right that the skyrocketing profits of the drug and insurance industries are paid for by the skyrocketing premiums that come from the pockets of the American people.” A healthcare system that incorporates the great majority instead of the minority shows that this system presents many positives. Countries around the world have used some type of publicly funded healthcare system for as many as 100 years. France, for instance, has had an established and well-working universal healthcare system for quite some time and their life expectancy for citizens increases more than three months each year. Additionally, French women have the second highest life expectancy rate in the world. There is evidence that this type of system has proven highly practical and functional in other countries. As the economy is in dismay, Obama’s healthcare plan may seem overwhelming and one that might be temporarily pushed to end of the “to-do” list in his first year in office, but an initiative that should be pushed in the limelight because it will eventually become a solution for the many short-comings that America faces as far as finance, health and general livelihood.
