President Obama's Health Care Plan Research Paper

This huge amount of governmental expenses spread within a period of up to 10 years will result in a slower economic growth. The slow down in the economic growth of America's economy will also be due to the fact that the U.S. economy is currently heavily burdened.

Burden to Healthy People:

One of the major controversial portions of Obama's health care plan is the burden it places on healthy people since they have to take care of the health insurance costs of unhealthy people like the obese or those who smoke. Additionally, it's compulsory for Americans to get a health insurance or they will be subjected to a tax increase that will be used to fund the health insurance costs of others. Under Obama's health care plan, health insurers are banned from imposing different premium charges that are dependent on the customer's health. Moreover, the proposed health care reform plan will also bar rewarding people who follow a healthy lifestyle (Tully, 2010). The other provision in the plan is that it forces young people with lower incomes that older workers to pay more than the actual health coverage cost while rewarding these older workers with a big discount.

Tax Increase:

According to President Obama's health care plan, high income employees will be subjected to a tax increase. For instance, if an individual earns more than $500,000 annually, he/she will have an approximate of 1% tax increase as compared to the current health system. The plan also proposes a 2.9% tax evaluation on income from royalties, dividends, interests, rent and annuities for people will over $200,000 as well as families with more than quarter a million annually. The plan also subject people who reject to acquire health coverage and businesses that don't provide their employees with health insurance to fines.

Health Care Rationing:

This is one of the unintended consequences of President Obama's health care plan since the government will have more power in the health insurance industry. With the government having more control of the health care industry, there is a likelihood of patient's confidentiality being compromised since health information may be maintained by the government. Moreover, the government may be forced to ration health care services, equipment and drugs if bribery occurs.

Potential Responses of Health Care Providers:

President Obama's health care plan is currently raising debates on because of the impact and challenges it's facing in the health care industry. The plan is already facing several hurdles because of the responses of the three major health care stakeholders in the health care industry as explained below & #8230;

Health Care Providers:

Hospitals and physicians are likely to oppose Obama's health care plan because of the unclear changes that would be made to malpractice awards. These changes will in turn establish the tests and referrals that doctors prescribe with the patient having the ability to sue the physicians or hospitals in cases where something goes wrong (Tapper & Khan, 2009). As a result these physicians are already complaining of increasing costs since they carry out various unnecessary tests because of the fear of malpractice cases. The physicians are likely to oppose the reform plan because of the need for them to have court protection when dealing with the variation of health care and lessening unnecessary tests. The HMO investors will likely blow off Obama's health care plan because of its probability of yielding a higher percentage of stocks.

Health Care Consumers: Obama's health care reform plan may receive various criticisms from both the middle and high-class citizens who depend on short-term loans.Health care consumers will lose some privileges including the freedom to their health insurance plan and freedom to be content with healthy living. Insured consumers are likely to applaud the plan because it will lower the costs of health insurance coverage and increase the accessibility to health insurance. However, for the uninsured consumers, there is a likelihood of them responding negatively to the plan since they will be compelled to get health insurance or be subjected to heavy fines.

Current Health Care Payers:

As widely expected, current health care payers are likely to strongly oppose Obama's health care plan since part of their incomes will be used in subsidizing health care costs of other Americans. Employers will be compelled to either provide health coverage that is similar to the national health insurance plan or on payroll-based insurance. In the backdrop of increasing costs, employers will respond negatively to this plan since they are always looking for ways to reduce their expenses. Similar to the potential response of employers, health insurance companies will reject the proposed health care reform plan because of the requirement for them to waive coverage amount.

Summary:

President Obama's health care plan is aimed at protecting the consumers of health insurance by making health coverage affordable and accessible. While many of the provision in this reform plan are better than the current health care system, there are several major shortcomings that need to be seriously addressed. I oppose the plan because it's quite expensive and will slow the economic growth of the country given that U.S. economy is already heavily burdened. Secondly, high-income and healthy living people will be compelled to pay for the health insurance costs of the low-income workers and unhealthy people.

While this may be a good initiative in ensuring that there is health coverage for all Americans, it will have a negative impact on this people and thus not fair. Both the high-income workers and healthy living people will be subjected to costs that are higher than the actual health insurance costs. Finally, the health care reform plan is unsustainable and rewarding people who are already benefiting from the status quo. It's unsustainable because of the lack of clarity on who will pay for the reform and thus should not be adopted.

References:

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Tully, S. (2009, July 24). 5 Freedoms You'd Lose in Health Care Reform. Retrieved October 22,

2010, from http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/

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Tapper, J. & Khan, H. (2009, June 16). What Does Obama's Health Care Plan Mean for Consumers? Retrieved October 22, 2010, from http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Health/story?id=7849837&page=1.....