Health care providers have to have seen this coming. It’s not like we woke up one morning and saw “Hey, the country’s in a recession.” The economic downturn was gradual and glaringly obvious, and people and organizations everywhere did their best to make preparations. However, many states throughout the United States are preparing to make drastic and unprecedented cuts in health care funds, and this couldn’t be coming at a worse time for consumers. The unemployment rate in December was 7.2%, which was up from November’s 6.8%. There doesn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel any time soon (you can’t help but feel bad for the complete mess that Barack Obama is inheriting) and it is important to know how these health care cuts might affect you and your family.

Health Services for Poor First to Go

Obama has been promising since the inception of his campaign that he wanted to extend health care coverage to include more affordable and widely available health insurance to those in lower income brackets. Now, before he has even been sworn in as the next President of the United States, states are already tossing programs like these out the window. Many states have been gung-ho in the fight to expand their coverage for the working poor, but with the state of the economy the way it is, these once hopeful programs are getting the boot. And the working poor are now becoming more steadily just the “poor,” as jobs continued to get slashed across industries.

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There are some health insurance companies where you feel like you are being taken advantage of at every single turn. Hidden charges show up on bills, you don’t have an easy time getting in to see your doctor, and you may spend upward of an hour trying to get the right person on the phone for customer service. This is not to say that health insurance companies exist simply to frustrate you: quite the opposite. Sometimes they just do not seem like they are doing all they can to best serve your interests as a consumer or customer. Health Net, one of America’s biggest health insurance companies serving over 6.7 million people across the country, has recently stepped up to the plate big time in the game of keeping people’s best interests (and health) at heart. In the third quarter of 2008, the insurer spent $670K lobbying with the federal government for a variety of different groups and lifting coverage restrictions.

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If you’ve never lost your job, you may not have ever heard of COBRA. COBRA is a health insurance plan that allows an employee who leaves a company for any reason to continue to be covered under the company’s health plan for a certain period of time. The name results from the fact that the program was created under the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation, and the system exists so that employees in between jobs can keep their coverage until they can hop into something new. This sounds just ducky, and it is definitely a nice option to have, people will find themselves paying full-price on all premiums for their coverage. They may still have the health insurance they’ve grown so accustomed to, but they’ll be paying out the wazoo for it.

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The new stimulus package includes subsidies to help pay for COBRA insurance coverage to those who have lost their jobs in our current economic hard times. This could be a welcome safety blanket for those who need a little extra monetary help while looking for a new job.

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It is no secret that I am a huge proponent of a universal health care system being instituted in the United States. If you have followed my blogs on medhealthinsurance.com at all, I somehow often manage to slip in a little blip about universal health care and all its glory, even if I’m talking about something as seemingly mundane as doctor’s visits. It is also no secret that this country is slipping deeper and deeper into a financial maelstrom. Experts may still be calling it a recession, but we are just a hop, skip and a jump away from a full-blown depression.

If we want to avoid an economic situation similar to that in the 1930’s, the government needs to do something, and fast. Obviously, the economic stimulus packages didn’t do what they were supposed to do, though I did enjoy having the extra money to fly home and see family in California. Borrowing more money and throwing it at the American consumers in hopes of “shoring up the economy” is a plan that just doesn’t seem to be working, and another path needs to be taken. And as you will see in the rest of this post, a universal health care plan might just be that path we need to sprint down.

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Yesterday, we looked at the types of health reform that Obama plans on instituting. Today, we’ll look at how these plans may be carried out.

If you were hoping Obama was going to charge in on his gallant steed and change the way health insurance operates in this country, you are probably mistaken. “The Obama plan is actually quite traditional,” says John Sheils, Senior Vice President of the Lewin Group, a health care policy research company. “It is very similar to the proposals made by other democratic candidates during the primaries.” This isn’t something to get down about, but realistic expectations should be held near and dear. Although there are some changes and extensions that Obama is hoping to make to the way things operate currently, what he drafts and what actually makes it through Congress are another story.

Bill Clinton and George Bush didn’t get bills passed simply due to lack in trying. Congressional support from the Democratic members, as well as their input, is going to be a crucial component of how the health care and insurance turns out for all of us, so that is what you will want to keep your eye on.

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Even though he hasn’t taken up residence in the White House just yet, we have a new President. Barack Obama will be sworn in come January 2009, and in his suitcase of changes he wants to see made in this country is a revamping of the health insurance system.

Some of you may have voted for Obama based on what he is promising to do for health care, and other of you may have been McCain supporters, or simply do not know what Obama stands for in the realm of health care. No matter where you stand or what you know, the following account will serve to educate you on what Obama aims to do with healthcare and insurance here in the United States, and how it may effect you and your life.

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