Another Look at Presidential Politics–Predictions for the Workplace–Obama on Healthcare

While Senator Obama has spoken out in favor of making sure that there is more health insurance available to employees and to citizens in general, he has stopped short of a universal healthcare proposal. He has proposed universal health insurance for all children in the U.S.

Obama favors requiring employers that don’t offer “meaningful coverage” for their employees to contribute a percentage of their payroll to offset costs of providing coverage for the uninsured. Small employers would be exempt from this requirement.

Obama also proposes to reimburse employers for catastrophic costs that exceed a certain amount (yet undetermined), as long as the employers pass the savings on to their employees by reducing the employees’ share of health insurance premiums. Obama would allow small employers to enter a National Health Insurance Exchange to purchase either a public health plan with subsidies or a private plan for their employees. He has stated his intent to reward employers’ efforts to influence good health through worksite interventions, health promotion programs, and onsite clinical preventive services.

Obama’s proposals on heathcare and health insurance are long on good intentions and short on specifics. His proposals and statements on this subject seem to realize the need for the federal government, employers, insurance companies, the medical community and individuals to work together to try to solve the problem of uninsured and underinsured employees and citizens. Again, however, that’s a complicated goal with few details on how to accomplish it.