A Critical Analysis of Robert Pear's Health Law to Be Revised by Ending a Program - Research Paper Example

The program supposedly was for people with chronic illnesses or severe disabilities who wanted to reside in the community, even though their benefits could as well have been used to assist payment for nursing homes or assisted living facilities. CLASS would have been funded with workers’ premium payments through voluntary salary deductions, with no federal financial assistance. The premiums would have guaranteed the survival of the program over 75 years. According to Kathleen Sibelius, secretary of health and human services, only a few young and healthy individuals would enroll in the high-premium program.

“This could have led to a vicious cycle where premiums would have to be set higher and higher to cover the likely costs of benefits, leading fewer and fewer healthier people to sign up for the program,” she said. Obama’s legislative bill, signed on March 23, 2010, aims to overhaul the nation’s health care system and to extend health insurance access to over 30 million Americans. Obama’s proposal to remake the health care system comprises the following details: extending coverage to the uninsured while decreasing health premiums; non-discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, such as chronic illnesses or severe disabilities; improvement of Medicaid and Medicare programs; and prioritizing the elderly.

According to the independent Congressional Budget Office, the implementation of the law will cost the US government approximately $938 billion over a decade, but is expected to decrease the federal deficit by $138 billion similarly over 10 years. The health care bill has sharply separated Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats aim to insure more than 30 million people over 10 years. Republicans question the motive. The nation, according to them could not even pay for the claim programs, such as the already existing Medicare and Medicaid; much less launch another (Health Care Reform, 2011).

To some Americans, particularly the Republicans, the law is a government imposition meant to force employers to reduce employment, generate a non-sustainable privilege program, burden states and the federal government with uncontrollable expenditures, obstruct doctor-patient connection and worsen the unreasonable increase of medical service cost. Supporters, principally the Democrats believe that the law will be Obama’s greatest achievement and will certainly benefit millions of Americans. It would raise the number of uninsured; provide insurers better control of their health insurance; allow voluntary increase of their premiums; and reduce federal budget deficit.

Republican detractors of President Obama’s health care reform insist that the new health law impose a strict, bureaucrat-governed health system on Americans and risks the quality of healthcare. The federal government, critics say, is forcing a one-size-fits-all norm for all health insurances and commandeering state power to control the entire industry (Health Care Reform, 2011). What is now in question is whether the Congress has the supremacy under the US Constitution to oblige every American to buy health insurance, which is the main objective of the new health law.

The detractors’ biggest argument is that the new “American obligation” by Obama and co-democrats has pushed government parameter to an exceptional degree (Savage, 2011). Will the new health plan actually repair the health care system? The nation’s health care system boasts of its team of the finest health professionals and the most