Blog # 4 - Additional 2 pages ( Intro revision and Body I )

Natalia Duarte

Eng 103

Dr. McCormick

         

                                          Research Paper Draft # 2

                  President Obama’s Poorly Designed Health Care Reform.

             The making of a president and Obama’s long campaign trail explains how the politician who emerged in an extraordinary election, learned the personal and political skills necessary to make history in American Politics and worldwide. However, after more than a year in office, Obama has felt the need to address and reform the nation’s health care system. Despite the president’s good intention to aid those who cannot afford to buy private health insurance or to force employers to provide their employees heath coverage even in the smallest of business by 2014, many Americans still doubt the real benefits behind this bill.  I strongly disagree with the term “Obamacare,” commonly emphasized by the opposition. Why call it “Obamacare” when it was the Congress especially the republicans who tore this bill apart to make it what it is today. Instead of creating a whole new health system, the law tries to upgrade the current one. Their vision of reform will become the pain instead of the remedy and will be criticized as the cause of the problem when coverage starts hurting the nation’s pockets. The gap between how much Americans spend on health care and what they get in return occurs because they are embedded in a confusing system that gives them low value for their money, which makes people demand more than they need. According to William E. Lafferty, author of Healing, Medical Care, and Health Service Organizations, “ the United States has by far the most expensive health care system in the world per capita (per person).” Many indices of health care effectiveness shows that the United States fares very poorly in comparison to other developed capitalist countries. Almost all the other developed capitalist countries have universal health care. All their citizens are insured and their per capita costs are much lower. Even poor socialized Cuba provides free health care for all of it’s citizens and has a lower infant mortality rate than the U.S. I believe that president Obama’s health care bill was rushed, poorly designed and messed with by too many politicians who just simply swept the nation’s health care crisis under the rug.

     

      The New health Care law will cause a costly and continuous economical downturn nationwide. Peter Grier, author of Health Care Reform Bill 101; Who Will Pay For Reform? states,“ Change like that doesn't come cheap. More specifically, change like that would cost about $940 billion over its first 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.” The law doesn’t make a single change to achieve its goal of insuring nearly all Americans. Instead, it provides a loose safety net designed to attract people who do not receive health coverage through employment and can't afford to buy their own, who are unemployed, and those who have been dependent on their insurance due to pre existing conditions. After the bill is enacted in 2014, insurance companies can no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, with the exception of immigrants who will neither benefit from this law nor Medicaid even if they pay out of their own pockets. Moreover, everyone must purchase health insurance or face a “$695 annual fee”. According to Arthur B. Laffer, author of How to Fix the Health-Care Wedge, “a one trillion increase in federal government health subsidies will accelerate health-care inflation, lead to continued growth in health-care expenditures, and diminish our economic growth even further.” The bill plans to overtax small businesses, large employers and the rich. If business owners cannot afford their employees, the health-care recipients will lose their jobs. With the rise in unemployment, more people will have to depend on the government (welfare) to make ends meet. Additionally, they won’t be able to pay for either health insurance or imposed fees.

Work Cited:

Laffer B. Arthur.  “ How to Fix the Health-Care Wedge.”  The Wall Street Journal 5 Aug. 2009.  19 Oct. 2010.

             
Lafferty E. William. The Journal of  Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Healing, Medical Care, and Health Service Organizations. Washington: DOHS, 2004. PDF file.