Obama's health care reform bill will face "Waterloo"

2013-12-30 source: in 2014, the health care reform pushed by President Barack Obama entered the comprehensive implementation stage According to the health insurance reform bill signed by Obama, from January 1, 2014, the new health insurance scheme purchased by American residents will come into effect Before the end of March, American residents will either have health insurance or face fines American media believe that the painstaking and thankless "word-of-mouth" project is likely to become a "Waterloo" in Obama's second term, given the difficulty and controversy of implementing the health reform bill The health insurance reform bill was signed by President Barack Obama at the White House on March 23, 2012 For the first time in U.S history, the bill states that almost all Americans should have health insurance by 2014 At present, about 46 million people in the United States do not have health insurance Health care reform will protect 32 million of them, increasing the coverage rate from 85% to 95%, only a step away from universal health insurance But the bill has been opposed by Republicans, insurers and many Americans In June 2012, the United States high court finally ruled that most of Obama's health insurance reform provisions are constitutional, and the most controversial "compulsory health insurance" provisions are retained Although the legal barriers to health reform have been cleared, the U.S government still faces great challenges in the implementation level Under the health care reform act, to join a health care plan that takes effect on January 1, 2014, U.S residents should apply for purchase by December 15, 2013 However, since the launch of the "health insurance exchange" affordable health insurance trading website for 36 states, which is built by the federal government, on October 1, there have been frequent technical failures and continuous paralysis, a large number of users are difficult to log in and apply for health insurance products, and the applications received by health insurance institutions are also wrong In the past two months, American people and media have never stopped questioning, criticizing and negative reporting on the health care reform website To this end, the Obama administration has made great efforts to repair the medical reform website, and has to postpone the deadline for applying for medical insurance to December 24, 2013 The analysis also points out that the biggest problem facing the Obama administration is whether there are enough US residents to apply for health insurance According to a recent Gallup poll, 28% of Americans who do not have health insurance would rather pay a fine on time than choose a health insurance plan under the framework of health reform In order to encourage Americans to buy medical insurance, Obama himself, with the help of White House staff, logged on the health reform website run by himself in Washington, D.C., and bought medical insurance products for himself Obama chose cheaper "copper grade" products with a monthly premium of less than $400 According to White House officials, Obama's leading purchase of health care is only a symbolic move, intended to show support for health care reform websites In addition, due to the gradual implementation of the health care reform, millions of Americans who originally had health insurance are facing the situation that the health insurance institutions cancel the original health insurance plan for various reasons such as substandard terms, which is exactly the embarrassing situation that Obama has repeatedly promised not to happen Obama also had to compromise The slow progress of the health care reform bill has greatly damaged Obama's approval rating According to a joint poll released by CNN recently, the support rate of American people for "Obamacare" fell to a new low At present, only 35% of respondents support Obama's health care reform, 5 percentage points less than the end of November; 62% oppose Obama's health care reform, 4 percentage points more The poll also showed that 63% of respondents believed that the implementation of the health care reform act would force them to increase their health care spending, and 42% believed that their situation would become worse under the framework of the health care reform act The poll also showed that Obama's current approval rating is 41%, 14 percentage points lower than 55% at the beginning of the year, the lowest point in his presidency The associated press recently listed Obama's health care reform bill as the top ten news headlines in 2013, and commented that the White House originally thought it could have a positive impact on the health care reform bill, but the frequent loopholes in the website attracted the ridicule of the U.S Republican Party and the public media, and at the same time, it hit the morale of the Obama camp Healthcare reform is a tough one and is seen by Republicans as an opportunity to take advantage of in the 2014 mid-term elections If the democratic party loses the election and both houses fall into the hands of the Republican Party, Obama will not be able to carry out any influential domestic policies, and the health reform may be "overturned" Obama himself also said that with the mid-term election test coming in 2014, Democrats who support health reform do face greater pressure because of health reform problems, and he should be responsible for this, but insisted that he would not accept any plan of Republicans in Congress aimed at influencing or overturning the implementation of health reform