Insurance Quotes & Advice

Senate Democrats met this week to reconcile the two healthcare reform bills that were approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions(HELP) Committee and Senate Finance Committee.  The version approved by the HELP Committee contained a provision for a government run public option, while the version approved last week by the Finance Committee did not.

Once the Senate reconciles their version it will still need to be reconciled with the House version which will in all likelihood also contain the public healthcare option.  Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is supporting a measure that would contain a public option but would allow states to opt out of it, of they so choose.

It’s appearing much more difficult to pass a bill in the Senate with the public option with a number of more moderate Democrats concerned over the added expense.  The more liberal House appears certain to pass a bill with the public option at this point and while the administration favors the public option, they appear willing to give it up in order to pass the reform bill.

There are serious doubts as to whether a reform bill will pass before the year is out, although the Obama administration is hopeful that something can be worked out during the current Congressional session.  With millions of Americans without healthcare insurance and cost spiraling out of control, the Obama administration has made healthcare reform it’s primary domestic policy initiative.

President Obama’s healthcare reform proposal took a sharp blow this week as Democrats are considering dropping the plan for a government run insurance option.  The Senate entered the recess without a formal vote after Senate Majority leader Harry Reid reported last week that this would be the case.

Fiscal conservatives both Republican and Democrat are balking at the costs associated with a government run insurance program and the effects it would have on the private industry.  However without the plan, it may difficult to follow up on President Obama’s promise of finding a insurance solution for the estimated 50 million Americans who are currently uninsured.

That being said it would also probably be a mistake to follow in the footsteps of Massachusetts, the only state so far that has mandated universal health insurance coverage.  Putting in to effect an expensive plan and trying to control spending or find financing options later could backfire as it has for Massachusetts, the state quickly found that costs far outpaced their estimates and were forced to seek federal support.

Coming up with a comprehensive healthcare reform package is no easy task, as decades of neglect from the government over skyrocketing healthcare cost have led to the current situation.  Soaring Medicare costs and the impact from the recession now leaves the costly government run program less than nine years before insolvency and that time frame may fall even further.

It is probably for the best that Congress takes it’s time in this matter, as this will likely be the only chance they get to try to fix the problem that has been growing for many years now.  That they are also forced to come up with a solution during the worst recession since the Great Depression and when the government’s debt load has ballooned has only added to the already difficult task.

The Obama administration faces numerous obstacles in their effort at healthcare reform.  Despite efforts to seek bipartisan support, Republicans have been firmly against any sort of public healthcare plan and there a quite a few of the more conservative Democrats that have their objections as well.

It’s obvious the current system is completely broken, we have Medicare which will go bankrupt in a little more than 8 years as well as 50 million Americans which are uninsured which cause a massive drain on state budgets across the country.  Unfortunately there is no easy or cheap fix, as things stand now, it’s looking like the administrations current proposal will likely cost over a trillion dollars in the first decade alone.

Thus far Massachusetts has been the only state to attempt mandating universal healthcare insurance, but they are quickly finding out that the costs have far exceeded their expectations and have been forced to ask for federal support to fund their program.  With federal budget deficits expected to exceed $3 trillion over the next two years, the federal government would be hard pressed to find ways to fund such a program on a national level.

However, it is equally obvious some sort of change needs to take place, the unfunded liabilities of the Medicare program are staggering and despite previous attempts to control costs, they continue to spiral out of control.  It is at a point where annual federal healthcare costs now exceeds the entire military budget spending.

American business are struggling to pay for the healthcare costs of their workers.  One only need look to the auto industry to see how their healthcare costs put them into a distinct disadvantage with their competitors around the world.

As difficult it is to say, dealing with the growing number of uninsured has to be considered a secondary objective and it could quite possibly be fiscally unfeasible.  Something first needs to be done to control healthcare costs and any type of reform that doesn’t focus on that will be doomed to failure.