Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Tide of Health Care, Pt.4 – Think children; think bi-partisan.

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Many experts agree that the most likely early health insurance/care reform initiatives will involve expansion of the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program ). This program has been a bone of contention for years now. Every time the Congress has produced a bill for this purpose, Mr. Bush has squashed it with his veto. The timetable for this appears to be around March, when it comes up for review again by Congress. So this may be one of the first major deliveries as Mr. O makes good on his health insurance/care commitments. According to Mr. Buckmueller: "SCHIP is one of the big success stories in health policy over the last 20 years." “It has succeeded in getting kids the preventive care they need to keep them out of the ERs.”

This appears to be the only major shoe-in, however. The other major issues like Medicare expansion, widespread health insurance availability, the National Health Insurance Exchange and the employer mandates are almost certainly going to require a heavy dose of bi-partisan support.

Even with the Democratic Congress, there will be conflicting interests covering the table. The multi-trillion-dollar health insurance industry may prove a force to be reckoned with.

Mr. Buckmueller explains that one large mistake and reason for the failure of President Clinton's 1993 health insurance/care reform effort was that Clinton's administration did not foster enough bi-partisan support. The assumption here is that Mr. O has learned from that serious oversight. Mr. Buckmueller believes that Obama’s best chance of success would be to provide both sides of the isle with the basic tenets and sequester help in piecing it all together.

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