Critical Thinking Essay

Question:

Obama’s healthcare plan against Mitt Romney’s pre existing condition.

Audience should be retirement people there.

How Obama’s health plan is better than Mitt Romney’s health plan.
eg.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-08/romney-s-preexisting-conditions-put-36-million-at-risk.html

Answer:

Critical Thinking

Introduction

In this memo, the topic of analysis is the healthcare plan suggested by President Obama in comparison with Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s pre-existing condition. This analysis is made in the context of sense it will make when President Obama visits the state of Florida to explain it to people who are in retirement.

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Comparison and contrast of the healthcare plans of Mitt Romney and Barak Obama

There are many facts about President Obama’s healthcare plan that many retirees in Florida are not yet aware of. Obama’s healthcare plan is aimed at expanding the coverage of insurance to millions of Americans by reducing the number of people who are uninsured in all income levels, age groups, and states. This is in stark contrast to Mitt Romney’s plan, whose one of the core areas of focus is people who suffer from pre-existing medical conditions. In this plan, which is characteristic of more targeted policies, Romney promises to shield workers with insurance coverage from losing that coverage in case they choose to change jobs.

In a comparison of the healthcare plans, it is imperative to focus in a number of issues. According to Faler, one of these issues is on whether the plans would significantly raise the number of Americans who already have a health insurance cover (1). Other key issues include affordability of the insurance cover, a possible increase in the number of consumers being protected, improvement in consumer choice, amount of help provided to small businesses, improvement in quality of care, and reduction of costs.

Gupta observes that regarding Obama’s plan, it is clear that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would severely reduce the number of Americans with health insurance (3). This would limit their ability to access the much-needed healthcare. The net effect of this difficulty would debt and burdensome medical bills. This problem would be exacerbated by the introduction of Medicaid block grants and private insurance incentives, which Romney promises to introduce as an amendment to Obama’s healthcare plan.

For Mitt Romney, another point of departure from President Obama healthcare plan is the issue of extending health insurance to Americans with pre-existing conditions. Although the Republican presidential candidate has clearly stated that he intends to shield workers with insurance coverage from losing it once they switch jobs, he does not state what would happen to Americans who fall into other categories. A case in point is those ailing individuals who are seeking health insurance coverage for the very first time. In such a situation, it means that in a Romney administration, states would have to find solutions to all the people whose insurance coverage status is not addressed in the healthcare proposal.

At issue in Romney’s healthcare plan are the 36 million sick Americans who risk being denied coverage. According to Cooper, under Obama’s healthcare plan, there would be a 20% reduction in uninsured rates through expansion of Medicaid eligibility to all Americans living under 138% of the federal poverty level (2). Cooper points out that this translates into $31,809 in a family with four members and $15,415 in the case of an individual (3). In such families, Romney’s plan would leave 39 million people uninsured while under Obama’s plan, slightly over 17 million would remain uninsured.

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Nevertheless, Romney’s healthcare plan should not be underwritten simply because of these seemingly glaring weaknesses. It is evident that Romney is yet to give specifics on different aspects of the healthcare plan. As the Associated Press reported, in such a situation, analysts are left with no other option except making assumptions about proposals aimed at providing states with federal block grants for Medicaid as well as tax advantages to individuals who intend to buy their own insurance (1). Young notes that these assumptions greatly lean towards the ‘conservative’ element that is traditionally exhibited by the Republican Party (2).

It is also imperative to focus on the motivation for Romney’s proposal regarding individuals with pre-existing conditions. In this regard, the core of Romney’s argument is that the federal government should not play a significant role as far as the operations of the healthcare market are concerned. This philosophical conception sets Romney’s healthcare plan apart from Obamas.

Conclusion and recommendation

Pre-existing condition: the issue has gained pre-eminence in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. It shows the greatness weakness of Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan: that of risking denying health insurance coverage to 36 million sick Americans. In this regard, President Obama stands a high chance of convincing Americans that Romney’s healthcare plan is a way of countering the efforts being made by the president to expand health insurance coverage to all Americans of all ages, social classes, and states.

By way of recommendation, President Obama needs to counter Romney’s healthcare plan by arguing that just because the 2006 Massachusetts healthcare law succeeded does not mean that the same strategy should be mapped into the federal context. The explanation that Obama needs to explain has to do with the fact that in Massachusetts, there was no better way of addressing the problem of pre-existing conditions, while in the US, there is. For obama, a key point should be on emphasizing the need to involve the federal government in healthcare programs in order to bring on board people of all ages, social classes, and states.

Works Cited

Associated Press, Romney, Obama tangle over health care reform law in first presidential debate, October 4, 2012, retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/romney-obama-tangle-over-health-care-reform-law-in-first-presidential-debate/2012/10/03/9882cd10-0dca-11e2-ba6c-07bd866eb71a_story.html  on October 11, 2012.

Cooper, Michael. On Health Care, Two Visions With Their Own Set of Facts, October 4, 2012, retrieved from http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/on-health-care-two-visions-with-their-own-set-of-facts/  on October 12, 2012.

Faler, Brian. Romney’s Pre-Existing Conditions Vow Puts 36M at Risk, October 8, 2012, retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-08/romney-s-preexisting-conditions-put-36-million-at-risk.html  on October 12, 2012.

Gupta, Sanjay. New report compares Obama, Romney health care plans, October 2, 2012, retrieved from http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/02/new-report-compares-obama-romney-health-care-plans/  October 12, 2012.

Young, Jeffrey. Mitt Romney Pre-Existing Conditions Health Care Plan Doesn’t Match ‘Obamacare’ Or ‘Romneycare’, October 4, 2012, retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/romney-pre-existing-conditions-health-care-plan_n_1939735.html  on October 10, 2012.


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