| Obama's Health-Care Plan: Doctors debate pros and cons |
Our universal health-care debate is the most popular article on our Web site—and there’s quite a continuing debate in the comments section. Now that Barack Obama is looking to implement universal health care, we contacted our debaters for a follow-up. This time, we asked, assuming a universal plan will happen, is President Obama headed in the right direction? According to Obama's Web site, as accessed in March 2009, some of the things his plan includes are:
The costs, says the site, will come from “rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level.” In response to Obama’s first State of the Union speech, Louisiana's governor Bobby Jindal said: Republicans … stand for universal access to affordable health-care coverage. What we oppose is universal government-run health care. Health-care decisions should be made by doctors and patients, not by government bureaucrats. We believe Americans can do anything, and if we put aside partisan politics and work together, we can make our system of private medicine affordable and accessible for every one of our citizens. Our debaters wrote their arguments in early March. Details, such as Gov. Sebelius’s status (which Dr. Whelan mentions) may have changed by the time you read this. So what's the answer? We asked two experts: Assuming a universal plan will happen, is President Obama’s headed in the right direction? Here's their take. You can get in on the debate here .
Yes
The Obama health-care plan is headed in a positive direction by all historic indicators. It began with February’s expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program after years of failure, providing insurance to millions of additional vulnerable children. Then, the passage of the economic stimulus bill helped states maintain current levels of care for their poorest citizens. Now, a new secretary, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, with a dedicated commitment to the common good has been nominated. The administration has undertaken a summit at the White House to explore all the possibilities, with four particularly key objectives. The first is finding ways to insure every American. At a time of foreclosures and job losses, the last worry anyone needs is whether they can get thoughtful care with appropriate follow-up if an emergency befalls them. Current law provides for continued insurance under COBRA if a job is lost, but this is incredibly expensive for families—particularly if someone has no job. But SCHIP expansion aside, more than 40 million people still have no insurance. A second objective has been transparency, so the remarkably expensive enterprise of medical care doesn’t become a new pork barrel of inefficiency. This leads to the third goal: cost efficiency. Tremendous efficiencies are possible because they are currently being achieved by our economic competitors around the world. Increased health-care efficiencies were probably the leading engine for the economic expansion during the 1990s. The United States currently has the developed world’s most inefficient system, costing more than twice as much as other systems while performing poorly on many health indices. Thus, a fourth goal is heightened quality, like that supported by the significantly expanded medical research in the stimulus bill. Better health, after all, is a goal shared by everyone, and Obama has moved us a giant step closer by forcefully articulating these four objectives.
No
President Barack Obama’s health-care plan at best is not reform at all, and at worst will expand the poorest performing segments of our health-care system and further erode what little choice currently exists at the individual patient and provider level. “Universal health-care coverage,” according to the president’s plan, would be largely driven by enrollment in public programs, such as Medicaid and SCHIP, in which the government sets benefit levels and provider reimbursement rates. Being nominally “covered” in a public health insurance program is of little value if prohibitively low reimbursement rates and administrative hassles prevent physicians from accepting you as a patient. Although the patient is the central figure and the key decision maker in the health-care system, the president’s plan unfortunately appears to continue the paternalistic view that government, not the individual patient, should decide the value of health-care services. Individual patients, regardless of income level, are capable of making appropriate decisions about their own health care, given the proper incentives. Giving patients ownership of their health-care resources and choice over how those resources will be spent will also increase the demand for transparency about the cost and quality of services.
Ultimately, the goal of real reform should be for the government to stop trying to design and operate public health-insurance plans and instead focus on providing disadvantaged individuals with the necessary funds to buy into the same system that everyone else uses.
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Last updated and/or approved: December 2009.
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Comments (63)
  written by Justin , August 30, 2010 With the American mentality and spirit, Government regulations on healthcare is scary and unnerving. I do believe that medical physicians should be given the right to decide what is best for their patients, not the business man on top trying to make a buck. A man with a law degree is not suited to pass decisions that pertain to the health of others, he is simply not educated/suited for that field or responsibility. The same goes for the inverse, why should a physician step foot in a Congressional hearing? My point is we should collaborate more with each other, and educate ourselves on the in's and out's of this health reform. A point was made earlier about the death rate of Americans to communicable diseases, i.e. polio, influenza, "now preventable diseases". It is true that we aren't dropping like flies to those illnesses, which leaves us to die at a greater rate of non-communicable diseases, i.e. CPD, heart disease, Parkinson's. It is a price to pay from an industrialized, prospering nation. Non-communicable disease do cost more for our health system, which drives our costs upward, there fore introducing supply and demand. Anyone familiar with economics would understand what inflation is; see the relationship? For Americans to take charge and change our own health care costs, we need to make ourselves healthy, on the individual. We are the most obese country. We poison ourselves, knowing the costs, with alcohol and tobacco. There are countless repercussions from those bad and nasty behaviors. That is why its so expensive, and thats why we should reassess the situation and pin point the real problem. We Americans are doing this to ourselves. report abuse
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 written by Sparta of Phoenix AZ, USA , August 04, 2010 Here we go again, another European trying to tell us how ignorant we are because we refuse to get sucked into another European debacle, this one known as universal health care...Mate, wake the hell up, you clearly have no idea what your talking about, like most Europeans...Go frolic on some corner or beach somewhere (or take a bath) and leave the real work to the USA and it's citizens...You only have a Europe because of us so get over your "Napoleon man" syndrome already..You guys are not flourishing, your going under, welfare state and all...Forgive me, but we have no intention of becoming the social welfare state/abyss regardless of Obama and the rest of his affirmitive action precidency. Your so successful you have to import millions from the 3rd world (none interested in assimilating) to keep your bloated system afloat..No thank you...You are the one in need of an education mate, clearly! Europe never seems to learn it's lesson. You have been trying to tell us how to conduct ourselves since independence and to what end? Please...Our system is the envy of the world so deal with it! report abuse
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 written by European citizen , August 03, 2010 I'm not from USA. I'm just a rational, educated and informed person living in one of the poorer countries of Europe. And, to be honest, you American citizens mostly approach this issue in the manner you approach most of the things. With strong attitude, defending "your freedom", your rights and strongly objecting anything that can even remotely sound like it has a trace of socialism or anything in that direction. And I admire your sense of self-worthiness - we would do much better if we had more of that in my country. But the problem is that you're always doing it with such a large dose of ignorance. You fear of the Universal Health Care because you think you will get worse care than you can get with your money currently. And I understand that - but those who think that way probably never had serious health problems in their life, which very, very easily can cost way more that you can afford, no matter your earnings, with the prices you have in USA. When it comes to this, and it does for many people like you - your treatment will DIRECTLY depend on a decision of the health insurance company employee. That employee - that is his job - he does it every day, with hundreds of people just like you in that situation, working for a company which pays his salary. And in order to get his salary, he has to stay in the limits set by company's profits. That is your current system. I can't imagine anyone be willing to put his life in hands of that person. You are fine now, that hasn't happened to you. But when it does, this will be your reality. And right now, it already is for so many people. You have a tooth-ache - you go to the dentist, and you pay 10 times more than people around the world - do you really think that dentist is so much better than the one in Canada, Switzerland or elsewhere? So, what is the alternative? Universal health care plan? Why is it better in the first place? Because you won't be denied health care if you can't afford it. Because it limits the power of health insurance companies - the government takes the responsibility - and that rarely happens. And if the government does it's job badly, they won't last long, since they took the responsibility and people will tear them down. Does that mean lower quality? Have some sense of common well being of your people. If the health care is not good enough for you, it's the same for everyone. Why the whole nation doesn't try to improve it? And it is not like you won't always be able to pay to get better treatment. If you think the quality will be worse because doctors will be paid less, you have to understand that it will all balance itself very quickly. And the truth is that your health care is one of the most expensive in the world. And it is not of the best quality in return, at all. It currently works like this in most of the world's countries. Some of the best standing countries, like Sweden, Norway, Switzerland...Why don't you look outside for a moment? People are not stupid outside of USA - they are not less than your people is. You should continue to be the best in what you are the best - but you should learn more from others in areas in which you aren't. Educate yourselves more. Inform yourselves more. People around the world mostly don't like Americans solely because of their ignorance. All the best to American people. I hope it all goes for the best for you. report abuse
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 written by Terry Skelton USN Corpsman, HooAh !! , July 30, 2010 OMG, Imposter Luciano, You have come to our country to become a doctor. Hmmmm, wonder why? Could it be that is because we have the most competent comprehensive health care system in the world? Maybe that's why people come from all over the world for treatment here in the USA. AS for "i will not have to go back to a small econimically porrer country to get my teeth fixed and my health checked upon"...WTF ?? Are you insane? Before you head off to Med School, you might want to learn how to spell. I have friends that go to Mexico to get dental work done because it's inexpensive and they give tequila for anesthesia. You cane here because of freedom, plain and simple. This Obamacare crap is taking a huge chunk of that freedom away. We will no longer be able to get the health care we want, instead we will be given the health care the Gov't wants us to have. Sooooooo, why don't you crawl on back to Croatia, become a Vet or something, dogs can't pick their health care provider. report abuse
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 written by sssss , July 25, 2010 How can you leave health care in the hands of a profit driven company. If universal health is so bad how come the people in these country with it are NOT complaining. I don't think any of these countries would swap their current system for ours. I wonder what are we ranked in the world- currently around 68. Even Cuba is ranked above us. report abuse
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 written by Mr Kaelis , July 19, 2010 You, sir, are an idiot. "Muslimism"? Really? The religion is called Islam, thank you, and what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Please, do yourself and the rest of the free world a favor and actually have a clue as to what you are talking about before posting to a semi-public forum. How, in any way, will the government take over "our physical bodies" through reform of a healthcare system that currently values profit over patient? How, in any way, will reform force you to vaccinate against easily preventable disease? Are you not already forced to vaccinate against these same preventable diseases in order to attend public and private schooling? Let's discuss the impact of these mandatory vaccinations since the 1950s in a thoughtful manner and not make retarded statements about how they are "bad" and that "this has to stop". The facts are that childhood deaths and life-long impairment from preventable disease have been reduced to such low levels through government mandated vaccination that you, in this day and age, have NO IDEA of the human cost if we were to just stop the vaccination routines currently in place. If you really want a healthcare nightmare, go ahead and stop those vaccinations in your town and see what happens. When parents come looking for blood because their child died from something so simple to prevent, will you offer yourself up as the one responsible for their children's death? You make no sense in your innane ravings. Your statements are merely based on hysteria and not any form of actual fact. Please become more informed and then come back to the table with some credible comments. report abuse
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 written by robert , May 06, 2010 This health care is horrible. Many of the citizen think this will be a good because yeah everyone will have healthcare but have any of you actually realized the kind of health care this is. This is going to effect more lives of the living people, for example Canada has this health care and if you want to go to the hospital all they give you is medicine and dont do anything about it and in that time you wait to get your surgery you could have died cause it takes months for you to get in, ANd if this health care was so good then why arent Obama and the congress men using it? Maybe because it's a bunch of S***!!! [Editor's note: This comment has been slightly edited for content, per our guidelines: http://familydoctormag.com/comment-policy.html . Thank you for commenting.] report abuse
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 written by candice , April 26, 2010 Hosea 4: 6 (KJV) My people perish from a lack of knowledge. those people who are against the universal health plan need to wake up and smell the coffee. report abuse
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 written by Zachary Doinis , April 20, 2010 His plan sucks! Doctors and patients should decide what's best for them! Not idiot government beurocrats! Especially for children! report abuse
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 written by Mason Browning , April 16, 2010 i am aginst this idea. imean look at what is/has happend in the UK and Canada. the have universal healthcare, and they hate it. its ruinig their econmy. our econmy is already torn apart, and this wores make it worse. right now we are all feeling the effects of rescison. we have less money, and things are more expinsive now. so if we take this bill out taxes will be even higer. so why should i pay more money to help give healthcare to someone who abuse their body with drugs/booze/smokeing? and why dose the "goverment" get to decied who to give healtcare to? if your elederly and need cancer treatment, you might not get it because they deem you "unacceptable". that is unconstional. this would give the goverment to much power, because cant you see they are tring to control every aspect of our life? thats solcialism...and its BAD report abuse
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