Certainly everyone in America today is aware that President Barack Obama is in the process of pushing through a new stimulus package to help boost the economy. The issue at hand, however, is exactly how this package will work and how it will affect Americans in their everyday lives.
There is an estimated $100 billion dollars in the new stimulus package which is earmarked specifically for health care. President Obama has long promised to fix the nation’s broken health care system. And now he has committed to implementing new regulations which will monitor the health insurance industry.
The $100 billion which has been earmarked for health care will largely go toward providing benefits for the unemployed. The ultimate goal is to improve the nation’s health care system. The spending is also expected to provide a boost to the economy.
Of the money designated for health care, $87 billion of it will go to increase the federal share for Medicaid, the state and federal health care plan for the poor, which will help to take some of the pressure off the states to pay their share. $25 billion will be put into COBRA over the next 10 years. This program helps people to carry their insurance benefits after losing their jobs. $17.9 billion will go into the health information technology industry to help the transition from paper filing and medical records to a completely computer based system. Under this part of the plan, any provider who has 30% or more of their patients on Medicaid will receive a bonus of 85% of their costs. Therefore the plan will be encouraging doctors to take on Medicaid patients.
Overall, it is nice to see that if we approve this stimulus package, that some of our citizens will be getting the help and benefits that they need while also boosting the economy. Lets face it, we all would like to see the overall economy improve, however, for each one of us it is important that our overall situation improve as well. It is nice to see that the plan will be working to help out those families who have faced or will be facing unemployment, after all, they are the ones who will need the help the most.
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