Health insurance and the Obama plan
July 19, 2009 by admin
The promise of universal health insurance for every American has been a long standing political lightening rod. President Obama has aggressively pushed for new health insurance alternatives to help provide coverage to the millions of Americans who currently have no health care coverage.
The president has been running into the traditional roadblocks that have prevented a nationalized health care reform in trying to push through his landmark legislation. There are numerous groups that are lobbying against health insurance reform as they believe this could do a number of things including raising taxes, limiting coverage and reducing the quality of coverage available. Health care and insurance reform remains one of the largest political obstacles that the government has ever undertaken. The idea that one of the worlds wealthiest countries has millions of individuals without basic health care coverage seems incomprehensible, while universally almost everyone agrees that their should be coverage in place for everyone, the big problem arises once the question of paying for the insurance arises. There have been many documentaries and articles written over the years criticizing the U.S. health care industry and pointing towards countries such as Canada and France that have nationalized health care system in place. The Obama plan is not likely to universalize health care, but still does not have the endorsement of the American Medical Association.
The Obama health insurance proposal is centered on a key tax related item.. The main ingredient is implementing a tax for individuals who receive the highest premium coverage from their employers. The centerpiece of the legislation aimed at paying for universal coverage is based on the principal that employees are currently receiving a tax free benefit from their employees in the form of their health care. For example, if your company pays total annual premiums to a health insurance provider of $15,000 for you and your family, the government does not require you to pay income tax on the premium that is paid for your benefit. The new proposal would implement a taxing threshold, and require you to pay income tax on amounts paid over a certain government minimum ($11,000 was an estimated figure). This new tax would then be used to help generate the required revenues necessary to cover the universal health care coverage and offer insurance to individuals who currently do not have health care coverage. It is estimated that the total tax on all health insurance coverage is in excess of two hundred billion dollars. There is speculation that the government could place income restrictions on the new taxes, trying to target only families where the household income is above $125,000 annually.
The Obama proposal is going to bring out strong opposition from lobby groups and could dramatically change insurance programs for those who have not had coverage. This key piece of legislation is going to be hotly debated in both the Congress and Senate and could take the balance of the year to work through all of the negotiated details.