Quick update: Obama & changes to U.S. healthcare!

Quick summary of Obama's recently announced plan here: I can't get the URL to work, so just go to news.google.com and type in "FACTBOX: Obama's ambitious healthcare plan"

My favorite points of the plan are:

-- Stop insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

-- Obama says he can reduce healthcare spending by 8 percent and save each taxpayer $2,500.

-- The Lewin Group, a consulting firm, forecasts the Obama proposal would raise federal spending by $1.17 trillion from 2010 through 2019. (From wikipedia: "In 2007 the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on health care")

(Quick side note: The Lewin Group conducted a study on the single payer CA Bill SB840 showing that a single payer system would SAVE (versus increasing spending) $8 billion in the first year. Savings are because you decrease the insurance companies' 25% administrative overhead to the 4% Medicare admin overhead. Check it out here: http://www.healthcareforall.org/studies.html)

-- A National Health Insurance Exchange to help people buy private insurance, act as a watchdog and create standards

-- Tax employers who do not provide coverage.

-- Small business tax credit to help pay for employee health insurance

-- Require healthcare for all children, expanding Medicaid & SCHIP to cover poor children

If the U.S. really can get insurance companies to take everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, that would make a big difference and would make us more like Germany, which you can watch a 10 minute Frontline video about here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/