Friday, July 31, 2009

President Obama's Health Care Reform 2009

President Barack Obama noted during his election campaign for the 2008 presidential election that the health care system in the United States was at best inadequate. Many times he spoke about the system, the many uninsured and under-insured people throughout the country and how it was time for health care reform. He promised that if elected, he would make the issue a top priority for the nation.

Planning Health Care Reform

In the years prior to becoming elected as the President of the United States, Mr. Obama researched and consulted with experts all around the country looking for help in devising a new plan for health care in the US. He knew that it was time to fix the failing system that was in effect and drew up plans for his health care reform which were viewable on his website.

On July 14, 2009 a healthcare reform bill, written by Chairmen Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), Henry Waxman (D-CA) and George Miller (D-CA), the chairmen of the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor Committees in conjunction with President Obama's plan, was introduced in the House of Representatives. This bill included an attempt to control the costs of health care by trying to eliminate fraud and waste and promote quality and accountability. It proposed that it would save $500 billion over 10 years and strengthen Medicare. In a statement by the President he also claimed that with this proposal, "Americans can receive the best care, not the most expensive care. And it will offer families and businesses more choices and more affordable health care."

Pre-Existing Conditions and Changing Jobs

They propose to disallow insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions and to cover workers themselves, not hinging insurance coverage on whether or not they keep the same job. One of the problems facing workers under the current system is that if they change jobs, are laid off or start their own businesses, they will lose their health care and if they already have a health condition, they stand a risk of being denied coverage.

The biggest change in the way that company coverage would work is that the individual consumers would be choosing their insurance and their employers would help pay for it instead of the current standard in which the business chooses the insurance and they help their employees pay for it. At this time, if that employee leaves the company, he is no longer insured until he either purchases his own or has been employed at a new company for a certain period of time. Usually this time period is about 90 days, but it can be up to a year.

The proposal suggests that it will be able to cover an estimated 97% of Americans with it's system that includes a public health care option and an insurance exchange that would allow families to review pricing and quality to let them choose the plan that best suits them.

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure

President Obama has, since the beginning, endorsed a preventive maintenance attitude towards health care, stating that if more emphasis was put on preventing disease and crippling medical conditions, less money would have to be spent on trying to cure. Through education and preventive measures such as early diagnostic testing, learning healthy habits, and investing in the future of scientific research President Obama is looking to the future and hoping, as he does with many of his programs, that what we do today will benefit society as a whole tomorrow.

The Senate Draws a Similar Proposal

The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee released 615 page document (not yet in it's final form) on Tuesday Jun 9, 2009. The Committee chairman is Senator Ted Kennedy but Senator Chris Dodd has been filling in for him and drafting much of the bill while Senator Kennedy has been dealing with brain cancer.

Opponents of the Proposals

Opponents of this reform plan spend as much as $1.4 million every day sending lobbyists around Washington D.C. hoping to spoil the plans of this reform. The White House says that some opponents are going so far as to spread mis-information about items in the bills such as a rumor that the bill requires older persons on Medicare to be forced to discuss options of how to end their life. Republican congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite was quoted as saying, "'It doesn't say that they're going to receive counseling on euthanasia, that's not what it says,' but some people fear that the government is trying to control every aspect of their lives and that this reform bill is just one more step closer to a Socialist regime.

House Republican leader John Boehner said that the plan will “increase healthcare costs for families, small businesses, and seniors, destroy jobs, and reduce access to quality healthcare.”

Supporters of President Obama say that nothing could be further from the truth and that bringing about this health care reform is a necessary step for a better future for the US.

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