How Does the Economic Stimulus Package Address The US Health Crisis?

Most of us aware that 1 in 6 Americans lacked health insurance before the recession, and are possibly aware that more citizens are losing their medical plans every day as unemployment skyrockets. However, the new economic stimulus plan that President Obama has just signed does contain some relief.

Help With COBRA Health Insurance Payments (For Some People)

The primary relief will be for newly unemployed individuals and families who can choose to take a COBRA health insurance extension.

Keep in mind that not all companies have to extend benefits under COBRA, and I mention that because I think some news stories have been misleading on this issue.

But the other problem with COBRA extensions is the cost. Ex employees must usually pay the entire premium for their group plan, where before they were used to having their company pay a percentage of that bill. Many employees are not really aware of the real cost of health insurance, and their extended benefit premium can be quite a shock.

The stimulus plan will help some of these workers pay that bill by covering 65% of the premium for lower income workers. So the new bill will not impose any permanent reform, but does provide help for many vulnerable ex-employees and their families.

Make Health Care More Efficient

The bill also allocates billions of dollars to help doctors and hospitals modernize the way they carry on the business of health care. I applaud this effort because I have seen how technology has made other companies, like life insurers, more efficient, and actually allowed them to lower rates in the last decade.

In my opinion, a modernization and efficiency effort will provide a long term and sustainable way to lower health care costs.

More Money For Medical Research

Sometimes you do have to spend money to save money. Because of medical advances, people actually spend less time in the hospital than they used to. Operations and other medical procedures that used to require long hospital stays and recoveries can now be preformed in outpatient facilities which release patients at the end of the day. Even though hospital expenses have been rising, individuals have been statistically shown to spend less time as inpatients because they can recover more quickly. We all want this trend to continue.

In addition, research money will be used to really analyze which treatments are the most efficient. Better preventative medicine also means that people will spend less time being treated in the most expensive facilities. We can enjoy better health while cutting costs!

Most Of Us Still Need Health Insurance

I am hopeful that we Americans are moving forward, but most of us still need health insurance. If you need to find an individual policy, we make it easy to compare individual health insurance quotes with our fast, safe, and free health insurance quote forms!

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health insruance, stimulus package

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