Pros And Cons Of Health Care Reform

The article focuses on several possible proposals for health care reform by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama which are perceived to produce unfavorable results. Such proposals include requiring employers to provide employees with health insurance, requiring each citizen to purchase an insurance policy that complies with government criteria and establishing a health insurance plan that would compete with private insurance. The author argues that such proposals would negatively affect taxpayers, health care providers and quality of care.

Section: MEDICINE & HEALTH
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."
PRES. BARACK OBAMA has made it clear that reforming the American health care system will be one of his top priorities. In response, congressional leaders have promised to introduce legislation before summer's end, and they hope for an initial vote in the Senate prior to the Labor Day recess.
While the Administration has not, and does not seem likely to, put forward a specific reform plan, it is possible to discern the key components of any plan likely to emerge from Congress:
• At a time of rising unemployment, the government would raise the cost of hiring workers
A government body deciding on the comparative-effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of medical treatments inevitably will base its decisions as much on politics as on science. As Reinhardt warns, government comparative-effectiveness research would be "vulnerable to lobbying by interest groups, because one or a few members of Congress could easily imperil [the research agency's] existence through the appropriations