President Obama Finally Putting Forward Health Care Proposal

The president is finally stepping up to the plate on health care. His will put forward a proposal on health care that he hopes will bridge the gap between Democrats in the House and Senate. In the name of transparency, the White house bill will be placed online this Monday, February 22nd.

It appears as though the Democrats are now willing to make it happen without any Republican support through a process called Reconciliation. This process will allow a simple majority (51) in the Senate to pass the legislation instead of the super majority (60) which is basically impossible now that Republican Scott Brown has won the Senate seat in Massachusetts.

With Scott Brown, the Republicans now have 41 Senators who can basically stop almost all bills from moving forward with a filibuster. Since the Republicans have filibustered bills by the Obama White House more than any other administration in history, the Democrats are going to try Reconciliation to keep the filibuster from taking place on health care reform.

Americans should benefit tremendously as a country if reasonable and smart health care reform takes place that will ultimately slow down cost increases, reduce waste, and increase access to health care.

The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. 28 industrialized nations have single payer universal health care systems, while 1 (Germany) has a multipayer universal health care system like President Clinton proposed for the United States.

Here are some facts:

1.The United States spends at least 40% more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country with universal health care.

2.Single payer universal health care is not socialized medicine. Health care providers would be in fee for service practice, and would not be employees of the government, which would be socialized medicine. Single payer health care is not socialized medicine, any more than the public funding of education is socialized education, or the public funding of the defense industry is socialized defense.

3.Studies reveal that citizens in universal health care systems have more doctor visits and more hospital days than in the US.

4.There would be free choice of health care providers under a single payer universal health care system, unlike our current managed care system in which people are forced to see providers on the insurer’s panel to obtain medical benefits.