Alphabet Soup

               The Obama health care plan, a.k.a Obamacare, has many flaws and induces a great deal of confusion in regards to health care coverage, especially for working class individuals and even more so for employers who are required to pay for their employees’ health insurance. Health care insurance premiums have increased in the last four years once Obamacare was taken into effect. Co payment increased from $10-$20 for a doctor’s visit and exclusively to a MD specialist. Because of the rising cost for brand name medicines, more and more people are choosing generic medicines simply because they’re too expensive to purchase. Medicine that is vital to one’s health, albeit antihypertensive/cardiac medications and medicine for people with cancer, in particular, is suffering a price rise as well. Medicare coverage for senior citizens- retired senior citizens are required to pay additional coverage for Medicare for their medicine coverage and doctor’s visit, especially when the senior is confined in the hospital or undergoes a surgical procedure.

               However, although Obamacare has its share of flaws and can be classified as “fake” universal healthcare as the general consensus concluded in class, there are some benefits that can be reaped from this plan, that is, if the famous alphabet soup of parts A, B, C, D applies to the individual. For the most part, Part A is beneficial for inpatient care, and the nice thing about it is that for most people, no monthly premium is required. However, Parts B, C, and D require some form of payment. Read more: http://www.nysut.org/socialservices_10576.htm. What’s not mentioned in this article that is another applicable benefit to Americans is the advantage dependents (children in college aged twenty-five and up) receive: coverage by their parent’s health insurance. Medicaid, government health insurance that helps people struggling with finances, supplies full coverage, including visiting nurses and home care assistants (according to my mom this is better than private insurance).

               All in all, Obamacare is beneficial in its own right, but only to certain groups of lucky people. It’s not truly universal when its essences are extracted, but an argument or counter-example to this would be European countries that do host universal healthcare coverage for its people that suffer staggering tax rates and longer waiting periods to see the doctor. What our country needs is a diagnosis, and although the idea of universal health care is something most people, including myself, sanction wholeheartedly, our country’s in no position to fund what some call a “socialist” concept and others, a necessity.