With confidence, we can say we truly believe that most
everybody in the region is at least somewhat familiar with the health care
debate that dominated news coverage throughout all of 2009. Although the Senate
passed its health care bill on Christmas Eve, and the house had already passed
its version, there is still much work to be done.
Once the health care debate really became heated legislators
nationwide began holding town hall meetings with the general public to talk
about the issue. Senator Blanche Lincoln and Representative Marion Berry held
one of these meetings on the campus of ASU last year to discuss the topic
months before it was voted on.
Throughout the year democrats and republicans went back and
forth all year debating what did and did not need to be included in the bill.
The house passed its version of health care reform first, and the house bill
focuses more on creating competition in the insurance market because a lot of
states, like Arkansas, have no competing insurance companies. Only one option
is available, and competition for those companies could mean lower rates for
those purchasing the insurance. This is why the legislature is looking into a
public option to create some of that competition within the market.
By creating health care legislation with a public option in
order to drive down prices is an effort legislators are making to try and keep
premium prices down for small business owners because they soon may be required
to provide insurance to all employees under the new laws, which could
potentially impact small business owners tremendously. Especially those small
business owners that are unable to get onto a big group plan, making their
premiums automatically higher.
Additionally, with the current insurance plans the way they
are most people don’t want to get on family plans because it doesn’t matter if
there are two people covered or 20, the price will still be the same.
Donn Mixon, of the Mixon Law Firm in Jonesboro, said “I
think for businesses there is a lot of frustration over all of this. Most
people in today’s world believe we have an obligation to take care of the
people who can’t take care of themselves, and because of that there has always
been some sense of needing that public option. They are going to be telling
business owners that they have to provide insurance for employees at a time
when it is so expensive. That is why we need that public option to be
available.”
Mixon said, though the legislation being talked about would
require business owners to provide the insurance to employees, there are some
incentives available if a business does decide to provide coverage.
“Of the industrialized world, we are well down on the list
as far as the health of our population,” Mixon said. “But, we are well up on
the list of what we pay per capita income on health care. We are spending more,
but the quality is lesser. If you were to throw that out as a business option,
nobody would want it. That is why you see people like the American Medical Association
and the American Association of Retired Persons on board with this wanting to
reform the system.”
He said the process now will be for a group from the Senate,
the House of Representatives, and the White House to get together to meld the
two completely different bills into one to be voted on by Congress once again
before being sent to President Obama for final approval.
What comes out of those meetings may very well be one of the
top stories of 2010.
With confidence, we can say we truly believe that most
everybody in the region is at least somewhat familiar with the health care
debate that dominated news coverage throughout all of 2009. Although the Senate
passed its health care bill on Christmas Eve, and the house had already passed
its version, there is still much work to be done.
