Obama's Health Care Plan

President Obama's health-reform plan is strong on vision but weak on details, according to most writers, economists, and physicians writing in major national publications. The President's plan is an inspiration for uninsured Americans because he is trying to create a new system with a federal component that will extend medical coverage to people without medical insurance. However, critics of Obama's plan say that he has not offered the details to convince them that the plan will cost $900 billion, as the President says. In fact, critics say that the President's plan will cost over $1 trillion in the next ten years, and it will hurt the 85 percent of Americans who already have medical coverage.

A physician claims that President Obama's healthcare plan offers a lot of vision but only a few details about how to make his vision a reality. The President proposes to increase bureaucracy, which will increase costs, and people are not convinced that it will improve the system's efficiency, anyway. In fact, Dr. Ragain says the following about President Obama's healthcare plan: "The best that can be discerned is a general outline that offers much promise but does not deal with any prickly details that might offend voters." One of the main problems is that healthcare reform is very difficult to do well. Healthcare costs have been increasing steadily, and the economy is in a recession that is forcing employers to fire people and to reduce the medical benefits of their employees. To take care of the rising costs and the rising numbers of uninsured people, President Obama is proposing that the federal government must become a major player. However, this proposal for an increased federal involvement sounds like socialism to many Americans, and many doctors do not like the fact that they will have to deal with more federal regulation. In fact, federal regulation is expensive.

Dr. Ragain cites two studies that show that regulation is already is serious problem. The first study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and shows that "U.S. healthcare administrative overhead is twice that of the Canadian system. These researchers found that 31% of health care expenditures in the US went for administrative costs. Obama advocates that we increase this overhead further with no clear indication that quality will improve" (Ragain). President Obama claims that if we use better technology in the management of a federal-supported system, we can increase efficiency and reduce administrative costs. In fact, the President wants to spend $10 billion over five years to improve the technology involved in healthcare management. However, the second study that Dr. Ragain discusses was published in The Archives of Internal Medicine and shows that "information technology did not make a quality difference" (Ragain). In other words, improving the technology involved in healthcare