President Obama's Healthcare Reform Bill: Reform or Refrain?

In the past few months, we have seen and heard more and more about our President’s Healthcare Reform Bill. Regardless of political affiliation, few know what this bill actually implies. The whole healthcare dispute has concentrated on President Obama being too broad and how aggressively he is pushing for the bill to pass. While both of these are legitimate issues we are forgetting the bill’s significance entirely. I am here to break down President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Bill and explain what it means to you and your pocket.

The bill plans to fix the high cost of health care by making it more affordable, increasing healthcare coverage for children, computerizing patients’ health records, researching better treatments for illnesses, and investing in prevention. While this all sounds grand, what cost does the president want Americans to pay? Already over eight trillion dollars in debt, we must evaluate whether the reform is worth the cost. Moreover, the cost for this “fix-all” bill is unknown. Some say it could be more than $630 billion, while others say it won’t cost us a dime. Ultimately, if we don’t know the cost of the reform, we don’t know how much we’ll save.

The president claims that he, “will not sign health insurance reform that adds even one dime to our deficit,” yet analysts question how this is even remotely possible. Obama plans to not add to our deficit by letting the wealthy and middle class pay for most of it. Obama’s Healthcare Reform Bill cannot possibly help the economy. In fact, all evidence proves just the opposite. We must keep in mind that the health care industry is part of the American economy. By dismantling it, faulty as it may be, we are dismantling, or possibly even destroying, an entire industry.

The bill also plans to mandate health insurance. By doing so, about 100 million Americans would have to switch to a more expensive government designed health plan. Americans that don’t receive adequate insurance coverage will be required to purchase one or be fined (a tax equal to 2.5% of their income) until they do so. This clearly violates Obama’s promise to let people keep their current health insurance.

A study at MIT by Amy Finkelstein suggests that the dominance of insurance itself has almost doubled the cost of healthcare. So by expanding coverage, we would also be increasing the cost of healthcare. Making health insurance compulsory would make it easier for anyone to get coverage, which is beneficial for Americans with chronic diseases but would, at the same time, increase the cost for young, healthy Americans.

There are only two ways, according to CATO, that the bill would help the economy. One way would be not mandating health insurance; however this would defeat the purpose of the reform. Another way would be increasing funding to alleviate healthy individuals of high costs, which means that the government would have to provide the funding (increasing the deficit).

All in all, the president’s Healthcare Reform Bill is unrealistic. There is no way that Americans will want to risk paying more in taxes and in healthcare when they are not guaranteed that the reform is worth it. The bill would not only have drastic repercussions on the American economy but also spark political disputes over what should be covered and what should not.

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