The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

COMMENT: Obama and health reform

Barack Obama has finally triumphed as he has signed his landmark healthcare bill into law in a ceremony at the White House. Obama has been scrutinised since his inauguration, and the American public has been wondering when all the change that Obama proclaimed will come about for definite. However it appears he has won the battle, as this new law is aimed at insuring the millions of Americans who currently have no health insurance, and is one of the policies that Obama was determined to implement.

BY CLAIRE WILLIAMSON

Obama was joined by supporters of the health reform including Democrats from both Houses of Congress. However, like everything in politics there are always those who don’t want the change, and this is very evident in the divided America.

Obama’s plan looked like it had come to a halt in January, when the Republicans seemed to prevent the bill coming to a final vote in the Senate. However, the Democrats came up with a plan that ended up with Obama signing it into law.

President Obama will now have to try to sell the reforms to the American public before the November mid-term elections.

House of Representatives voted 219-212 late on Sunday to send the 10-year, $938bn bill to Obama. He said, “The bill I’m signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see.”

However, if we look at the pros and cons of this plan, it helps us understand what effects this will have on the American public.

According to World Correspondents, here are the supposed pros and cons:

The pros:

1. Discrimination of health insurance companies will be eliminated. No more pre-existing conditions clauses in health insurance contracts.

2. Given the fact that millions of Americans will be insured by this new health care bill, the US Government can negotiate among health insurance firms to lower the premiums of their health insurance. This would mean less health insurance costs for a lot of Americans.

3. Tax credit will be given to those Americans who still cannot afford to avail of health insurance to help them to have one.

4. Stiff competition among health insurance firms will possibly result in much lower insurance costs and more quality health insurance products and services.

5. Aside from the elimination of pre-existing conditions stated above, the coverage amount or sum insured will also be waived by health insurers.

The cons:

1. Given the huge amount of expenses pegged at $940 billion in a spread of about 10 years, it might slow down the growth of the heavily burdened US economy.

2. Insurance Availment Mandate. You have no choice but to get a health insurance. Otherwise, you will be subjected to a 2% tax increase which will be used to subsidize the insurance costs of other Americans. Healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.

3. There will be a tax increase on people with very high income. If you are making more than half a million per annum, you will have about a 1% tax increase.

4. The US Government will have more control in the health insurance industry causing patients’ confidentiality to be more likely compromised since centralized health information will likely be maintained by the government.

5. Chances of bribery may possibly increase as health care equipment, drugs, and services may end up being rationed by the government.

As expected, the American public’s views are divided, with one saying, “The bill signed today is a travesty against the American Nation,” and another saying,“Heath Care Change is needed.”

It is fair to say that President Obama may have won the battle by signing his bill in to law, but judging by the responses of the American public, he still has a lot of convincing to do.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 10:39 am and is filed under Features, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.