Another Approach at Achieving Reform

As the health care reform debate hits full speed, it seems lawmakers can’t agree on anything. What has been compromised on is that health care for Americans needs to cover more people and the overall cost needs to be dramatically reduced. What hasn't been agreed on is the correct path to achieve these goals.

Obama and colleagues are in favor of a public option or a co op plan that will achieve lower costs and expand coverage. The problem is that he will only cover 16 million or 1/3 of the uninsured and if you break it down it’s very expensive per person. This adds up to 10,000 dollars per person per year which is almost twice the amount of the current person pays, around $6,000. This plan is a wasted expenditure and the wrong way to approach this problem.

The problem with calculating the number of people covered under a public plan is a confusing one. Seeing how out of 48 million currently uninsured, two thirds or 16 million of theses are currently eligible for current government assistance like Medicaid, 12 million are illegal immigrants and the rest, roughly 18 million are offered insurance through their employer but refuse to purchase it because of its high cost.

It seems more approachable and less invasive to assist those whom are eligible for assistance get coverage and find a way to subsidize insurance premiums to those who are spending more than 10% of their income on health insurance. These approaches confront a much agreed on problem of covering those uninsured without creating another inefficient government entity while not further bankrupting the system.

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