Obama Health Care Bill.

I found a file from Obama's website that outlines the bill. It will be helpful to put it all in perspective because it would give me an idea of the issues and what Obama is planning to do.

It starts out with the problems that the country is facing now in terms of health insurance. It outlines what they are and how it is that they plan to fix it. First, it talked about the high costs of health insurance and what that means to Americans. It says that a lot of times it is difficult to pay the ridiculously expensive co-pays and that it is a major reason why people go bankrupt! If paying for health insurance is so difficult, then it is no wonder that so many minorities are not covered. In the plan he says the government will try to make health insurance available to all through financial help.
There will be a way for every American to chose a plan that they like. Also, if they already have a plan that they are happy with, they can keep it. He says that he wants to health care system to be for the people, not just for big companies to make money off of.

I can see why there is such big debate on this because he attacks large businesses. He says that pharmaceutical companies are making too much money and he says that he is going to allow people to buy from companies from other countries if they are cheaper and also allow generic drugs to be developed so that they will be less expensive. He points out that there are two companies that really make all the drugs in this country and argues that the problems is that there is not enough competition and that these companies have created a monopoly. To aid in this, he says he wants to improve competition and pass laws to prevent the monopolies to continue.

Also, he talks about "transparency," that is the idea that hospitals and other health providers will have to tell people what their visits, medicine, and tests really cost, and how much of their co-payments go to pay for it. I think this would be helpful because over charging will most likely not occur if people can demand to see what they really should be getting charged.

There is one line in his plan that I liked. He said, "Our health care system has become a disease care system, and the time for change is well overdue. " I liked this because it has become apparent that there is a lot of emphasis on taking care of sick people, but not preventing them from becoming sick, and that is the most important thing, and is what the health system should be based on.

That being said, there is a lot of disease in the United States, which are caused by people's lifestyles (i.e. obesity, diabetes, asthma.) Obama write that it is important to make changes so that people will not end up in these positions, and as I was reading it, I thought about something that I had missed out in all of the reading that I had done before. Not only are minorities the ones who live in disadvantaged areas, and hold jobs where health insurance is not usually offered, but they are also targets for things like fast food. It is obvious to me when I go to the supermarket near my house. I work at a Natural Food Store in the Lower East Side (think Whole Foods, mom & pop style) and the produce and products that we carry are so much better than the ones that are in my Bronx supermarket's shelves. It is true that one can travel to get these, but it not easy accessible, and that's where the problem lies. There are four McDonald's at walking distance from my house, but no park to go jogging at. So not only are minorities those who have the least access to health insurance, but they are also the ones who are more susceptible to the diseases that are plaguing Americans today.

He also talks about the disparities in health coverage, my topic exactly, but only dedicates a paragraph to it. However, he does outline what the plan is in terms to making these gaps smaller, but does not detail how it would be done. The plan is to requiring hospitals to collect, analyze and report health care quality for disparity populations and holding them accountable for any differences found. How they would do that is not specified, but I will definitely look further into that. Although there was not a lot on fixing the problem with said disparities, there was a huge chunk on health insurance in small businesses and how the government would help in making it easier for them to provide workers with benefits.