Obama is Hopeful to Push a Quick Health Care Deal as of Tuesday Night

Tuesday evening President Barrack Obama stated that he would like to pass a new health care bill as soon as possible. In order to do this, Obama is encouraging the Senate and the House to pass the bill quite differently than their normal process. Normally a bill could take months to pass through the Senate and the House, but Obama is hoping for this quick health care deal to be on his desk and signe d by the State of the Union Address in roughly a month.

Obama pushes for this health care deal to be done so quickly because he wants health care to be affordable for all Americans by allowing all Americans coverage and subsidies for those who can’t afford it. Affordability for health care is the major concern on everyone’s mind, but as always, Obama, the Senate, and the House, differ on how to achieve this ultimate goal.

Because of the major differences between them, it will be very difficult to get a bill that is effective and passed in time for the State of the Union Address. Obama’s plan is to take an active role in getting this health care deal passed quickly, and he hopes that congress will do the same. President Obama is hoping that the Senate can write the bill, then the House read it over and make some changes, and then the Senate get it back and approve it. This is pretty much Obama’s only hope for getting the bill approved in time for his State of the Union Address.

The decisions to be made about the health care bill include: how many to cover, who to tax, methods to restrict taxpayer funding for abortion, and the issue on illegal immigrants paying for their own coverage. It is said that Obama and the Senate would like to simply increase the tax on high cost insurance plans, while the House would rather increase income taxes on the rich. It is decision like these that will hold up the health care bill from passing.

To make the health care more affordable, the House and the Senate will provide money for subsidies. It is expected the House will provide 602 billion dollars in subsidies from the years 2013-2019. Then the Senate will provide funding from 2014-2019 totaling up to 436 billion. In reality, the expected outcome is that the low and middle class income families will have to pay a higher tax to pay for these subsidies. But the over-all outcome would be 67 million more Americans insured!

So is it worth it? Who knows. President Obama will continue the fight in hopes to push this quick health care deal through congress in the matter of a month. If President Obama is successful, he hopes to have the subsidies to the Americans in 2013, but unfortunately, the majority of Americans will still suffer from high health care costs. Although, many Americans feel, “It is better than nothing.”