Health care Reform requires courageous politicians and a disciplined public

In this article found in Central Illinois Business magazine, the author is concerned with President Obama's health care reform and its ability to be cost effective. He points out that spending on Medicare and Medicaid are a far larger problem than financing social security and are the main source of our federal budget imbalance. Being able to manage and contain the cost of Medicare and Medicaid are very vital to long term success, but talks of changing the current system has brought about some uneasiness to the elderly. Concerns of denial of service are being fueled by rules in Britain that reportedly deny treatments such as coronary by-passes and hip replacements.

The other group of unhappy people with changes in federal health care are the nearly 85 percent of Americans who already have access to health care through a private insurance firm. A huge problem administrators are facing with implementing this new plan is being able to keep the insured happy while also covering the uninsured. To achieve this goal, the Obama administration will have to tailor a policy that both rations and controls coverage, mainly by making use of prices to control spending. One such way in which unnecessary spending could be slowed would be to have people pay more of their coverage from out of pocket expenses rather than insured coverage. This would encourage people to choose more carefully on the services they receive.

Policies such as the one mentioned above would most likely be deemed unpopular with the public at large, but enacting effective cost controlling policies needs to be a main goal for reform and it will take courageous politicians and a more disciplined public to achieve such goals.