Assigned Blog- Health Care

[2cheryl]

The health care reform has become quite a hot topic lately. Recently, Barack Obama has signed off on the new health care bill that will allow many more people to have health care. It's supposed to help students with their loans and what not because it cuts out "unnecessary middlemen" included in college loans. The new bill will have a total cost of $940 billion. It will also:

• Increase the fine on large companies that fail to provide health care to their employees; $750- $2,000 per person
• Cut back on the fine for people who fail to get coverage
• Get rid of Nebraska's exemption from all new Medicaid costs
• Add a Medicare payroll tax to people who are making $200,000 each year and for couples who make more than $250,000 per year
• Raise the "Cadillac" tax on expensive health care plans
• Ending the prescription drug "doughnut hole" by 2020; senior citizens who are caught up in this will receive a $250 rebate

The republicans really don't like this new bill. They believe that this will do little for the high medical costs and result in large gashes in very important Medicare services. They think that this will come down to the government totally taking over the private health insurance companies. But with the congress being controlled with democratic power it's highly unexpected of the bill to change.

I think that it's good that the new bill is going to allow many more people to get health care, but $940 billion is a lot of money and it leaves me questioning how we're going to afford that. Hopefully this new bill works for the better. I also like how it's going to help benefit students.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/30/pol.health.care/index.html

[Mr. Bruns]

Good but a tad brief overall.