Gearing up for health care reform
President Barack Obama’s presidential address last night was aimed at instilling hope in the American people and inspiring confidence in their leader. That speech didn’t come a moment too soon.
Obama plans to unveil his plans for the nation’s budget tomorrow. Among those plans, he’d like to dedicate $634 billion over the next 10 years to a health care “reserve fund” that would help pay for overhauling the country’s health care system.
The process begins
Obama’s ultimate plan is to provide universal health coverage. The first step in his 10-year plan is to start a dialogue with Congress on what to do about the 48 million uninsured Americans.
Congress has already approved $32 billion to expand coverage for children in low-income families and $19 billion fund computerization of health records.
A pricey system
Officials called the fund a “down payment” for health care reform. Experts say the cost of paying for all uninsured Americans to have access to health care could easily exceed $1 trillion over 10 years.
Part of the problem is the high cost of health care.
Some experts say 30 percent or more of what the nation spends may be going for tests and treatments of little or no lasting benefit.
Hurting families
Obama says medical bills are a leading cost of individual bankruptcy. The cost of and spending on health care have both continued to rise, even as the economy shrinks.
White House officials say slowing increases in the cost of health care and ensuring everyone has coverage is essential, in the long run, to solving the nation’s budget problems.
More budget requests
Obama’s budget also seeks to extend the $400-per-year tax credit to workers. It also proposes increasing the top income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.5 percent. The proposed budget would also update the alternative minimum tax, which reportedly would add $150 billion to the deficit by 2013.
If the $634 Billion is any indication of Obama’s health care plan, Obama is planning a radical change in the health care system. The plan has not yet been laid out and already Obama is earmarking more than half a trillion for it and explaining that it will just be the beginning of what will be necessary.
One of the reasons that health care seems to be so expensive (among many others) is the cost of research and development in order to procure new treatments and drugs.
At the moment the health care industry has a significant incentive to pour money into research and development because of the possibility of making money. What will happen when this incentive is marginalized when the government has taken over the health care system? Will our advancements slow down or even cease?
The loss of incentive of PROFIT is reduced if there were to be a massive subsidization of health care, especially when it came to pharmaceutical research. However, with that being said, would you rather have a doctor that only cared if you paid, or cared if you lived? I want them to be well compensated, but I don’t want a person in charge of potentially my life or death thinking about money, at least until I’m done with treatment.
I hope the income redistribution left wing wack job congress makes sure this money grab is indexed to inflation so we don’t have another AMT folly.
I’m all for insuring all of America’s children. Let the adults make responsible payments. If adults make an effort to pay their debts of medical care there would be less Bankruptcy’s. Too many people just see a large medical bill and give up.