President Obama\'s Health Care Plan

President Obama's health care plan basically follows the Democratic pattern which emphasizes on the remarkable and rapid increase of the number of people with health insurance through the significant spending of money upfront. This proposed health care reform plan will cost approximately $65 billion annually when fully adopted with the assumption that it will be paid from the system's savings. Given that America's health care system has long been considered as a disease care system, the health care reforms plan will ensure that patient chooses their doctors and receive health care without interference from the government. Additionally, the plan will enhance accountability of insurance companies and fortify employer-based health coverage.

According to the health care plan, nothing much will change for people who like their current health insurance even though the costs may drop by approximately $2,500 per year. On the contrary, people with no health insurance will have the choice of new and inexpensive health insurance preferences. One of the major reasons why the plan is designed is for the purpose of lessening inefficiency and waste while improving the quality of health care. The reduction of inefficiency and waste will in turn reduce the health care costs for both individuals and families. Obama's health care plan will increase efficiency and less costs of the health care system through various means such as the adoption of high-tech health information technology systems.

Moreover, efficiency will be improved by making sure that both patients and health care providers receive and provide the best possible care respectively even in the avoidance and persistent disease management services. Lower costs and efficiency of the health care system will also be achieved through the improvement of the market structure to enhance competition and provide federal reinsurance to employers. This will ensure that sudden or disastrous illnesses do not make health insurance too expensive for both businesses and their employees. Obama's health care plan adopts a national health insurance plan rather than the current private health insurance plan. This national health insurance plan will be managed and controlled by the federal government and would be helpful in the reduction of the national deficit (Longley, 2009).

Major Features of the Plan:

The proposed health care plan by President Obama has three major features that will have a major impact on America's health care system. These features are & #8230;

Affordability of Health Coverage:

This is one of the major features of Obama's health care plan since it seeks to provide portable, inexpensive and quality health insurance coverage to all Americans by building on the existing private and public health care plans. In order to achieve this, the plan establishes an innovative Medicare-like program for non-elderly residents without any health insurance coverage. Furthermore, the plan will increase the affordability of health insurance coverage by creating the National Health Insurance Exchange (NHIE), a governmental marketing organization which will directly sell health insurance plans to people without public or employer coverage (Laszewski, 2008). Employers will also have a program that will require them to either offer health insurance or contribute toward the national plan costs.

Other measures to increase affordability, portability and quality of health care include directing all families to cover their children, increasing eligibility for government programs and permitting flexibility in implementing state health reform measures. The plan will require health providers to be involved in the gathering and reporting of health care standards, administration and utilization of health information technology. This plan ensures that there is health coverage for all not only by getting the uninsured covered but by also protecting coverage for the already insured. Obama's health care plan also intends to provide health insurance to all by offering income-related subsidies for NHIE coverage and providing a definite source of buying health insurance coverage.

Modernizing Health Care System:

The second major feature of the proposed health care reform plan is modernizing America's health care system through the investing in the electronic health information technology systems. The current health care system makes it difficult for health providers to manage care, lessen medical errors and assess quality since most of the medical records are stored on paper. Unlike processing electronic claims, the processing of paper claims costs twice as much ("Barack Obama," n.d.). As a result, the plan suggests that the government will invest $10 billion annually within the next five years to adopt high-tech health information systems that incorporates electronic health records.

The development and implementation of these electronic health systems will be in coordination with both forefront workers and health providers including those in rural areas. Additionally, the electronic health care systems will make sure that a patient's privacy and confidentiality is safeguarded. According to the findings of a research, approximately $77 billion will be saved annually if most hospitals and doctors offices had the electronic health systems and records. These savings will be realized because the high-tech electronic health system will lessen hospital stays, improve appropriate drug use, prevention of repetitive and unnecessary testing as well as other efficiencies. This amount realized through the savings will also be helpful in lessening America's national deficit.

Supporting Avoidance and Strengthening National Health:

The final major feature in President Obama's health care reform plan is the importance of personal responsibility in creating situations and opportunities that foster the adoption of healthy lifestyles. According to the plan, prevention programs include dealing with childhood obesity in schools and employer wellness programs. In efforts to strengthen public health, the plan seeks to increase the number of primary health care providers.

Funding of the Proposed Plan:

With the major aim of Obama's health care reform plan being to provide affordable health insurance coverage for all at lower costs than the current health care system, there are several ways of funding that have been proposed. These ways of funding include & #8230;

Employers' Contributions:

To help fund the health care plan, all United States employers will be anticipated to either offer health insurance for their employees or pay a humble payroll-based tax to support the national health insurance plan. However, employers who opt to offer health coverage for their employees must provide coverage that is similar in quality to the national health insurance plan. This measure of employers funding the health care plan would be equal to how employers presently pay an unemployment tax to support state unemployment compensation programs. However, the requirement for businesses to contribute part of the payroll towards the national health costs does not include small businesses since most of the large business employers do not provide significant coverage or contribution.

Employees' Contributions:

The other way of funding the health care plan would be through the employees' contribution with the self-employed individuals having the option of purchasing coverage by paying a similar payroll-based tax like employers. On the other hand, individuals who are not in the place of work could purchase for coverage by paying premiums depending on their annual income. For the current uninsured persons, the federal government will provide the states with incentives to enroll them in the national plan. The national health insurance plan will ensure that individuals who are currently covered by the health insurance provided by their employers will not have the risk of losing coverage due to layoffs. Additional sources of funds for the plan will include the automatic enrollment of current non-elderly recipients of Medicare and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) through their employers or independently.

Pros of the Health Plan:

President Obama's proposed health care reform plan has several advantages to millions of common Americans including:

Elimination of Discrimination:

As compared to current health care system, Obama's health care plan will eliminate the discrimination of health insurance companies. Since the proposed health care plan is a national plan instead of a private health insurance plan, the pre-existing conditions phrases in health insurance contracts will be eliminated (Edenloft, 2010). As the conditions phrases in the health coverage contracts are eliminated, health insurance companies will be forced to reduce the costs of health insurance coverage. Alongside the elimination of these pre-existing conditions clauses, health insurance costs will also be relinquished by health insurers.

Affordability and Accessibility of Health Coverage:

The implementation of Obama's health care plan will in turn provide health coverage for many Americans. Consequently, the government can lower the premiums of health insurance through negotiating among the health insurance companies. The success of these negotiations will result in low health insurance costs and affordability of health coverage to many Americans. The proposed plan will also increase the accessibility of health coverage to many Americans since individuals who can't afford to gain health coverage will be given tax credit to help in doing so. Under Obama's health care plan, health insurance costs are expected to go lower due to stiff competition among health insurance companies. The quality of health care being delivered is expected to improve under the plan because of the competition among health insurance companies as they strive to offer improved products and services.

Cons of the Health Plan:

While the proposed health care plan will lower the costs of health insurance and provide health coverage to many Americans as compared to now, the plan has several disadvantages including:

Slower Economic Growth:

As revealed by President Obama in efforts to combine both the current House and Senate bills, the new health care reform plan will cost approximately $950 billion (Jackson, 2010). This huge amount of governmental expenses spread within a period of up to 10 years will result in a slower economic growth. The slow down in the economic growth of America's economy will also be due to the fact that the U.S. economy is currently heavily burdened.

Burden to Healthy People:

One of the major controversial portions of Obama's health care plan is the burden it places on healthy people since they have to take care of the health insurance costs of unhealthy people like the obese or those who smoke. Additionally, it's compulsory for Americans to get a health insurance or they will be subjected to a tax increase that will be used to fund the health insurance costs of others. Under Obama's health care plan, health insurers are banned from imposing different premium charges that are dependent on the customer's health. Moreover, the proposed health care reform plan will also bar rewarding people who follow a healthy lifestyle (Tully, 2010). The other provision in the plan is that it forces young people with lower incomes that older workers to pay more than the actual health coverage cost while rewarding these older workers with a big discount.

Tax Increase:

According to President Obama's health care plan, high income employees will be subjected to a tax increase. For instance, if an individual earns more than $500,000 annually, he/she will have an approximate of 1% tax increase as compared to the current health system. The plan also proposes a 2.9% tax evaluation on income from royalties, dividends, interests, rent and annuities for people will over $200,000 as well as families with more than quarter a million annually. The plan also subject people who reject to acquire health coverage and businesses that don't provide their employees with health insurance to fines.

Health Care Rationing:

This is one of the unintended consequences of President Obama's health care plan since the government will have more power in the health insurance industry. With the government having more control of the health care industry, there is a likelihood of patient's confidentiality being compromised since health information may be maintained by the government. Moreover, the government may be forced to ration health care services, equipment and drugs if bribery occurs.

Potential Responses of Health Care Providers:

President Obama's health care plan is currently raising debates on because of the impact and challenges it's facing in the health care industry. The plan is already facing several hurdles because of the responses of the three major health care stakeholders in the health care industry as explained below & #8230;

Health Care Providers:

Hospitals and physicians are likely to oppose Obama's health care plan because of the unclear changes that would be made to malpractice awards. These changes will in turn establish the tests and referrals that doctors prescribe with the patient having the ability to sue the physicians or hospitals in cases where something goes wrong (Tapper & Khan, 2009). As a result these physicians are already complaining of increasing costs since they carry out various unnecessary tests because of the fear of malpractice cases. The physicians are likely to oppose the reform plan because of the need for them to have court protection when dealing with the variation of health care and lessening unnecessary tests. The HMO investors will likely blow off Obama's health care plan because of its probability of yielding a higher percentage of stocks.

Health Care Consumers:

Obama's health care reform plan may receive various criticisms from both the middle and high-class citizens who depend on short-term loans. Health care consumers will lose some privileges including the freedom to their health insurance plan and freedom to be content with healthy living. Insured consumers are likely to applaud the plan because it will lower the costs of health insurance coverage and increase the accessibility to health insurance. However, for the uninsured consumers, there is a likelihood of them responding negatively to the plan since they will be compelled to get health insurance or be subjected to heavy fines.