Obama’s healthcare reform explained for YOU.

If you’re like us here at USDemocrazy your head is probably swimming with news about the future of health care.

Obama’s giving a speech here, spending will increase there….there seems to be a zillion stories with tons of info.

And…if you are like us… you have been desperately searching for someone to summarize  ALL this STUFF (minus any political fluff).

Our first search took us to Obama’s website. Too vague. Then we typed “Obama health care reform in a nutshell” into google. All we got was this cartoon by Mike Ramirez:

We like cartoons, but we wanted to learn more.

We do know Obama is keeping his options open. He is not saying much about his controversial health care bill. Meanwhile it is prudently being crafted behind closed doors.

Here’s Obama:

“We are still early in this process,” he said. “So you know, we have not drawn lines in the sand, other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don’t have health insurance or are under-insured.”

On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Mike Enzi, Republican’s ranking member on the health committee said of the pending legislation,

“This is the most comprehensive legislation that any of us will ever work on,” Enzi said Wednesday. “It will fundamentally impact one-sixth of the nation’s economy … affect the health care of every American. … It’s too important not to take the time to get it right.”

Not satisfied with this info, we decided to do our own research on this HUGE issue.

Here’s what we found out.

Obama appears to favor….

-          Convincing doctors and hospitals to emphasize the quality of care they provide over the quantity of procedures they perform (and be paid accordingly).

-          A public insurance plan similar to Medicare that would compete with private insurance companies.

-          Having as many people insured as possible so that health care costs will be pooled within the largest possible population.

-         All those who buy into the public plan would be offered the same rates regardless of their health risks.

-          Mandating state health care plans to provide a certain minimum level of health benefits. This level being equal across the country.

-          Increasing the availability of preventative measures and care for chronic conditions

-          Modernizing the US health care system to lower administrative costs and increase effectiveness

-          NOT borrowing/increasing the national deficit to pay for his health care plan

For more details and the best comprehensive analysis of the Obama plan we found thehealthcareblog.com. 

This blog also tackles the difficult questions regarding HOW Obama plans to cut health care costs by instating a public plan with a trillion dollar price tag (YES, THAT IS TRILLION). I’m sure we’re all itching to find that out…

We also found several intelligent arguments presented against Obama’s cost-cutting plan and doubts with regards to Obama’s statements with which he used to back up his plan!

Hope you find our notes helpful. If you find something interesting that we haven’t mentioned yet please give us a tip off. We’ll leave you with this touching clip and a chance to decide for yourself on the health care solution America ought to adopt …