THREE MAJOR ECONOMIC ISSUES IN PRESIDENT OBAMA'S HEALTHCARE PLAN

President Obama has introduced a $634 billion health care plan for the people of America. President Obama says that this plan is like an investment in the healthcare sector of America and will reap great results in the future. The proposal plans to increase the exposure of the healthcare insurance, but even after the implementation of the plan about 6% of the elderly population will not be covered under the healthcare plan as compared to 17% today. Then the proposal is expected to significantly increase the affordability of healthcare for the poor people of the country, and finally the proposal makes focuses on minimizing the total healthcare expenses in the USA. (Fredrick,Pp.10)

Like everything else, the plan has some issues and the three main economic issues of the healthcare plan are discussed below.

1. Burden on the already weak economy

The healthcare plan of barrack Obama will create even more burden on the already weakened economy. The healthcare plan says that after the implementation of this plan, every person in America would be able to purchase a healthcare plan for himself and the government would support with the subsidy. The government would provide subsidy through private insurers and through triggered federal plan.

According to the government figures, around 40 million Americans do not have a health insurance and it is expected that after the implementation of this plan very American would go for a health care insurance. It is expected that after the implementation of this plan American people will spend much more money on healthcare, if a person used to avoid the doctor before the healthcare insurance due to the possible costs then now he would consult the doctor at every possible chance. If the government subsidizes a service, a person will be enticed to use that facility more often than not.  (Goldberg, Pp.85)

The people who support this plan by Obama say that this plan will lead to better preventive care and better prevention will lower the total expenses on healthcare in the future. A person, who visits the doctor and takes medicine, may avoid the possibility of developing pneumonia in future. This means that the demand of healthcare will decrease in future and with it, the expenses involved in healthcare. The problem is that up-to date there is no technology, which allows us to identify the risk associated with a population before they start to develop the symptoms and in the short run, the healthcare is bound to increase the expenses.

The healthcare plan would cost around $65 billion in a period of certain years, and the experts believe that this is a very cautious estimate and assuming that all the variables will go in favor of the government. The plan has proposed certain cost containment plans and the government believes that these measures would provide a cost savings of around 8%, but still even after the cost cutting measures the plan is going to cost too much to the already weak ...