Spotlight on USA: President Obama’s Healthcare reforms are losing momentum

According to the USA government, Americans pay more for healthcare each year but get less coverage and fewer services for the premiums they pay. Currently, the USA spends over $2.2 trillion on healthcare each year.

President Obama’s 2010 budget set aside $630 billion over 10 years, as the first step towards reforming the American healthcare system, but the Congressional Budget Office says that the Bills currently under consideration would cost much more than that. President Obama’s twin objectives are to expand coverage and reduce costs. His ‘solution’ includes reforming the healthcare system, promoting scientific and technological advancements and improving preventative care.

However, controversy and noisy protest has followed proposals for healthcare reform. To try to allay concerns, President Obama has repeated past guarantees that a healthcare overhaul will not force anyone to give up health insurance they like, that he will not cut Medicare benefits, and that he will not raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year.

Much of the controversy in President Obama’s reform policy is the planned government-funded public health insurance option which would compete against private insurers. Insurance companies are understandably outraged, as they believe they cannot be expected to compete against an insurance company that is essentially subsidized by the tax payer. Many taxpayers are also outraged at the thought that they will be paying both for their own healthcare and for coverage for the “feckless” who would otherwise not be insured.

Another driving force for the growing unrest is the belief that government involvement in healthcare is unconstitutional or, at least, ‘un-American’. This free-market mentality means that they believe that there will never be enough money and that tax-payers will ultimately, therefore, be faced with higher costs and lower quality.

To quote Margaret Thatcher: “The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Jim Furniss, Director Market Access Strategy
Dr Deborah Hooker, Senior Consultant

Spotlight on USA: President Obama’s Healthcare reforms are losing momentum

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