Can Obama reform health care?

Can President Obama overhaul the world’s costliest healthcare system when other presidents like Jimmy Carter, Nixon and Bill Clinton have failed? It is definitely not an easy problem to solve and everyone agrees that a major reform is long overdue for the inefficient health care system in U.S.

U.S.’s healthcare system is said to deliver very unsatisfactory patient care at extremely high costs with some 46 million Americans left without any health coverage at all. It is well know that Americans spend more on health care than any other country in the world. The total amount spent on health care is a gigantic sum of over USD 2.4 trillion ($3.5 trillion) per year.

Health insurance premiums have doubled over the last decade at a rate three times faster than wage increases. The system rewards doctors and hospitals for conducting tests and procedures rather than good outcomes for patients.
One USD out of every USD 5 in earnings will be spent on health care within a decade. In 30 years, it will be USD 1 out of every USD $3.

President’s ambitious plan is broad and involves extending coverage to all Americans, creating a public health insurance option to compete with private insurers and digitising patient’s medical records.
He also wants the system to emphasize preventive care rather than management of diseases and to invest in research to identify the best treatments for a variety of ailments and conditions.