Custom term paper on Healthcare Reform in the United States

Republicans talk about the increasing role of the state, its intrusion into the sphere which, in their view, is a personal business of citizens. The critics of the bill argue that the projected cost of the reform, which is more than $ 900 billion for the next ten years, will even more burden the state with debts. The Republican Congressman Geoff Davis reported his extreme disappointment with the vote that determined the future of America because of its huge tax burden, normalized medical services, and obsessive bureaucracy. He pointed that Democrats were changing the current understanding of Americans, pushing them to the reckless way – to socialism.
The critics of the reform tried also taking other steps. Attorneys General of 14 states immediately filed suit in the federal court, demanding to declare one of the main points of the law unconstitutional. It was about the point, which obliged almost all Americans to buy health insurance, or pay the fine otherwise. The execution of this demand was to be controlled by the IRS.
The plaintiffs argue that Congress has no right to obligate citizens to make purchases from private companies. Congressmen substantiated this point by the so-called “commercial article” of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power to regulate commercial relations between the several States. But historically insurance contracts had never been attributed to commerce in the U.S., which meant only trade and transportation of goods between states. Therefore insurance has always been under the jurisdiction of the states, not Washington. According to lawyer Randy Barnett, Congress had never instructed the individuals to make economic transactions with private companies before. And even during the Second World War, the U.S. government did not force Americans to buy war bonds.
Currently, it is quite clear that the way of the health care reform will be tortuous and difficult. President Obama and Democratic Party of the United States throw all their strength to fight for reform of the health system, in which they confront the Republicans and the other part of the Democrats.
Here it should be noted that first, the U.S. Supreme Court previously several times allowed the Congress to regulate or prohibit various kinds of economic activities, which are, strictly speaking, did not relate to commerce. Proponents of the reform state that authorities of all the U.S. states, for instance, require drivers to buy collision damage waiver. In general, the state can oblige its citizens to buy health insurance, and most experts predict that the courts will ultimately reject the arguments of the plaintiffs. custom term paper
Anyway, the ultimate goal of the reform is to provide health insurance to most Americans and to reduce the enormous expenditures on health care. In addition, the plan of healthcare reform presented in the Congress provides a choice between private and public insurance programs. According to Obama, this will create competition in the market for health insurance, and thus, reduce waste and fraud of insurance companies, which in turn, won’t have the right to deprive a citizen of their services, regardless his/her health status. They will be abolished to refuse insurance for people who have problems with health and to cancel insurance for people who got sick.
The realization of the reform will surely involve serious expenses. But the program is designed for 10 years and its implementation will result in the fact that every American will have access to health insurance. However, under the law, citizens will be obliged to acquire health insurance under penalty of fine. In turn, low-income families will be provided with subsidies for insurance premiums (Jain 75).
In fact, practically nothing is really changed by the reform for people, who are insured by their employers. But what about middle-aged middle-class people, who are not insured at their workplaces? They may still have good health, but insurance will cost too much in their case. Now, a new medical insurance system will be expanded to include over 30 million Americans who do not pay for insurance at work. These are people who are less than 65 years, the age when the program for retirees is starting. Surely, all this innovations are in the end paid by taxpayers, but on the other hand, the larger is the business, the greater the social responsibility is.
Health care reform was one of Obama’s campaign promises. But the main thing here is that factually many of the proposals for the bill were in the past made by Republicans. Though now, there will definitely be a great number of the dissatisfied, because Obama’s reform has consolidated the extreme conservative Republicans.
In general, the tendency of Americans to preserve status-quo is well known to political scientists. In any case, partial or complete abolition of the reform is difficult due to the fact that the Democrats now have large majorities in both houses of Congress. Optimists among the Republicans say that this may be changed, and pin their hopes in November midterm elections, when the House of Representatives and one third of the Senate will be re-elected. At such elections, the President’s party almost always loses seats in Congress. Now the public mood will probably contribute to the fact that the Democrats lose more mandates than usually. However, they are exceeding the number of the Republicans’ mandates to the extent that it will be very difficult to win the majority. They’ll need to get 40 new mandates in the lower house and 10 in the Senate.
Even if the Republicans manage to win the majority in both houses of Congress, Barack Obama, who will remain the President until 2012, will be able to veto any attempt to cancel or disable his main achievement. The presidential veto will not be cancelled by the opponents; to do this, they will need to put in the White House a President, who will share their views on the restructuring of health care.
In other words, if the reform is to be cancelled, this won’t happen very soon. In any case, most experts believe that its opponents will try to cancel it not entirely, but only partially, because as it is clear from the arguments, the main idea of the reform (to change the health care system for better and make it accessible for everyone) is realistic and can be implemented in most of its positions.
Works Cited

Grillo-López, Antonio J. “USA’s healthcare reform: challenges and opportunities.” Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy 10.3 (2010): 295-296. Print.
Grillo-López, Antonio J. “USA’s healthcare reform: why it will not work.” Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy 10.2 (2010): 121-122. Print.
Jain, Hansa. “Health Sector Reforms and Health Poverty.” Social Change 40 (2010): 61-78. Print.
McWilliams, Michael. “Health Consequences of Uninsurance among Adults in the United States: Recent Evidence and Implications.” The Milbank Quarterly 87.2 (2009): 443-494. Print.
Spigelman, Allan D. “Health system reform.” Clinical Governance: An International Journal 15.1 (2010): 46-49. Print.