A Practical Choice for President: Health Care

A Practical Choice for President: Health Care

This article explores the choice for President from the perspective of an average, middle class American who is concerned about saving money on his health care in these hard economic times. After doing a little research I began to feel that perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew, but I persevered. There is a lot of information out on the web on what the candidates have proposed and whether or not it will work or not. I decided to start with a brief overview of the candidate’s plans from their own websites.

Senator Obama’s Plan

Senator Obama’s plan has a goal of affordable health care for all Americans. He wants to build on the existing system and expand it with a national health care plan. Here is a list of some of his proposed ideas:

• Requirement for covering Preexisting Conditions
• Small Business Health Tax Credit
• Lower businesses costs by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs
• Reduce Malpractice Insurance
• Large Employers provide health care or contribute to national system
• National Health Insurance Exchange
• Tax Credit for those that need it
• Lower drug costs, Generics, Importation
• Require health care cost information be collect
• Promote health care prevention coverage
• Develop national standards for basic health care coverage

Senator Obama has another goal of reducing the annual premiums folks pay by up to $2,500 per year. His plan includes using public and private insurance programs along with government regulation to require standardization in basic coverage and eliminating disqualifying conditions.

Senator McCain’s Plan

Senator McCain’s plan doesn’t have a goal of affordable health care for all Americans, but rather a goal of providing access to health care. Here are the main elements of his plan:

• Restore control to the patient
• Use Competition to improve quality, variety, lower prices, and make portable
• Purchase health care across state lines
• $2,500 individual, or $5,000 family tax credit
• Expand Health Savings Accounts
• Work with States on Guaranteed access
• Lower drug costs, Generics, Importation
• Promote health care prevention coverage
• Promote walk in clinics
• Promote Information Technology to reduce costs
• Reform Medicare and Medicaid payment systems
• Support smoking Cessation Programs
• Encourage States to lower costs
• Seek to provide Transparency to health care costs
• Develop a strategy for long term care

Senator McCain’s plan focuses on tax credits to encourage insurance company competition. His plan also would deregulate the industry to allow more creativity in coverage options.

Independent Health care Experts

I went looking for an independent organization that had evaluated the proposals for the two candidates and I found the The Commonwealth Fund http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=707948 which is a private foundation with a mission to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality and higher efficiency.

The Commonwealth Fund evaluated the candidates health care proposals against the principles outlined by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health Systems. Their evaluation criteria was composed of these elements:

• Aims to cover everyone
• Rules for individual insurance market
• Employer role in providing benefits
• Medicaid and SCHIP
• Families exposure to costs
• Requirements to have coverage
• Leverage to stimulate improvement in quality and efficiency
• Uninsured coverage after ten years

The long and the short of the evaluation is that after 10 years Senator Obama’s plan would reduce the estimated 67 million uninsured by nearly half to a figure of 34 million. Not the universal coverage that is Senator Obama’s goal, but better than the reduction of only 2 million to a figure of 65 million uninsured by Senator McCain’s plan. Senator Obama’s plan would cost 319 billion more over the 10 year period than Senator McCain’s plan, but there is definitely a better bang for each health care buck spent.

A Clearer Picture

In the pursuit of figuring out which candidate will cost me less money for my health care there are no hard numbers that are guaranteed. Senator Obama does have a projected savings of $2,500 annually, however it is not clear that would be realized and his site even states that this would not occur right away. The Commonwealth Fund did rate Senator Obama’s proposals as having a better chance of reducing the out of pocket expenses for patients than the current system. Senator McCain’s proposal was evaluated as having less of a chance of reducing out of pocket expenses.

One of the hidden cost reduction items is that the larger the pool of folks with insurance the greater the chance that the premiums would be lower because of a group discount. So since Senator Obama’s plan is likely to reduce the number of uninsured by nearly half the projected level, then there is a good chance that the premiums would be reduced as well.

Conclusion

I thought that comparing the candidates tax proposals http://www.newsflavor.com/Politics/US-Politics/A-Practical-Choice-for-President-Taxes.300869 was difficult, but discovered that it wasn’t nearly as difficult as comparing their health care proposals. My conclusion is that for most folks the best bet is to go with Senator Obama regardless of your income level. The reason I believe this is his plan doesn’t run along class lines. Everyone can either keep their existing health care insurance or go with a national system and still have the possibility of reducing the premiums. The only ones that may not like Senator Obama’s proposal are the insurance companies, because they will have more competition and will have to accept new government mandated rules.