NEWS

Tue, Jun 30

Issues Facing Healthcare Reform

The Obama Administration’s hope of revamping the nation’s healthcare system faces some major stumbling blocks: cost, creating a government-run plan, taxing workers' benefits and penalizing employers that don't offer coverage. All of these items are potential deal-breakers and a big blowup over any single one could threaten the entire legislation. Covering nearly 50 million Americans won't come cheap. Estimated costs run close to $2 trillion and will cost the United States about $35 trillion during the 10-year span of the legislation if costs don’t increase exponentially. Businesses currently provide coverage to more than 160 million people even though they are not legally required to provide it. The new plan would require employers to provide health insurance or pay a penalty. The most divisive issue is the Democrats' proposal for a new government health plan to compete with private insurers. The public plan would be open to individuals and small businesses through a new kind of insurance purchasing pool called an exchange, which would also offer private plans in direct competition with insurers. The last issue is the proposal to tax workers who receive employer-provided health insurance to raise money for covering the uninsured. Families whose total premium cost is above $17,000 would be taxed on the benefit of the coverage. If President Obama's plan is approved, concerns are that private insurance will likely disappear because few companies will be willing to pay huge health care costs for similar coverage offered by the government.

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