HEALTH CARE PROBLEMS AND INSURANCE

Health Care Problems and Insurance

Health Care Problems and Insurance

Background

The US political debates have focused on resolving conflicts over Healthcare Reforms. Budgetary limitations have spurred a debate over the financing issues of the Health Care Reforms. The debate on the financing issues of Health care Reforms has also gained attention in the United States. After 50 years of the launch of this program, it faces similar changes as the US healthcare system is facing. The main issues in health care reforms are about quality, cost and the management of the implementing these reforms (Mariner, 1994).

Health Care Problems and Insurance

President Barack Obama on Wednesday Dec 09, 2009 praised a Senate compromise on a public insurance option, and Senate Democrats said the proposals moved them one step closer to passage of a sweeping healthcare overhaul.

Democratic senators said they still had plenty of questions about the tentative agreement, reached late on Tuesday, and many withheld support until they could evaluate cost estimates of the plans and learn the full details.

After four days of private talks, Senate negotiators agreed to replace a government-run public insurance option with a non-profit approach run by private insurers, potentially resolving the bill's biggest stumbling block.

Obama said at an event attended by congressional leaders: "The Senate made critical progress last night with a creative new framework that I believe will help pave the way for final passage and an historic achievement," (Obama, 2009). The healthcare overhaul is his top domestic priority.

"I support this effort, especially since it's aimed at increasing choice and competition and lowering cost." (Obama, 2009).

The deal could make it easier for the Senate's Democratic leaders to meet their self-imposed end-of-the-year deadline to pass a bill, which would then have to be reconciled with a version approved by the House of Representatives on November 7.

The House bill includes a large government-run public insurance option, creating a potentially difficult negotiation when the two chambers try to merge their bills.

Shares of health insurers rose initially on expectations the Senate would jettison a government-run insurance plan seen as damaging to the industry, but later lost those gains as the market focused on proposed new insurance rules that could crimp profits.

Under the tentative Senate deal, the federal Office of Personnel Management would negotiate with private insurers to offer national non-profit health plans similar to those offered to federal employees.

Liberals praised a provision to allow people aged 55 to 64 to "buy in" to the Medicare health plan for the elderly, which now begins at age 65. Other senators questioned the impact on the program's already shaky fiscal future (Whitesides, 2009).

A picture says a thousand words, or so the old saying goes. In the world of politics, this phrase is exceedingly applicable. Sometimes a single political cartoon can adequately convey a political view more than would an entire essay on the same subject. Take for example, a recent drawing by political cartoonist, Clay Bennett. The cartoon depicts President Obama, clad in white gloves, a surgeon's cap and protective mask, wearing ...