Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Will Obama Health Care Prevail?, Pt.6 – Obama’s plan good, but expensive.

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Small businesses have been very hard hit and the last thing Mr. O wants to do is to worsen their situation.  In keeping with this, Mr. O has provisioned that small businesses who are unable to cover the expense of health insurance benefits would be exempted from mandatory coverage and from assessed contributions.  In addition, those businesses who are able to work with the government on health insurance could receive a tax credit that could be as high as 50% of health insurance premiums for their employees.

Senior vice president of the Lewin Group, John Sheils says:  "The Obama plan is actually quite traditional."  The Lewin Group, based in Falls Church , VA is a health care policy research company.  John notes the similarities between the health insurance proposals of the other Democratic candidates during the primaries and those made by Mr. Obama.  Mr. Sheils has directed extensive analysis of both Obama's and McCain's health insurance/care proposals.  He finds, what he calls a ‘critical flaw’, in both of them.  It is the same flaw found in our current system.  That is, they all focus on the provision of the health care services and procedures themselves when they should be focusing on incentives to keep patients healthy instead.

The analysis of Sheils is that the Obama plan would reduce the number of Americans without health insurance by 26.6 million by the beginning of 2010.  He estimates that the cost to the government for implementing this plan could be as high as $1.17 trillion between the years of 2010 to 2019.  Just to get to the year 2010 could cost the government as much as $2.7 trillion.  Still, he expects the Obama plan will cut spending by $54.1 billion within the next 10 years.  Although these savings are important, the price tag is still staggering.

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