During this first, and perhaps only term for the Obama Administration, one of the most hotly contested debates that took place was that of Healthcare Reform. After all, Obama has really touted this as his pet project for his first year in office and had openly campaigned and promised to those that came out to hear him on the campaign trail. It was this issue that many feel was one of the key stances of his that won him the Presidency back in 2008. He accomplished this feat by passing his Healthcare Reform legislation, but now one of the very issues that put him in the White House could also lead him right back out.
See as much as people liked to hear him speak back at those campaign rallies, they also rose on his words to levels of great expectation for the things he was promising on the road. Many of those that came out with great curiosity were lower income and minimum wage earnings families who before this thought medical care was really a dream, and by no means a reality. They heard the powerful words and hung on those, instead of maybe taking a little more time and researching what these changes might have in store for them.
Well reform legislation passed and here we are. The people of the United States are waking up to the new healthcare system, though it is being phased in piece mail over a period of years. One of the most important things Obama preached out on the trail was that healthcare would be available to any American who wanted. Now this was a distinct departure from before where it was basically a right of yours only if you worked full time for your employer and then your choices were limited. This seemed like a great thing to those isolated groups mentioned above. They no longer had to worry about medical insurance so they felt a little more entitled.
Or so it seemed. Ah, but when you looked down farther you find that there were some things and loop holes that need to be sealed, or else people would simply not go for it. One of those loopholes in some people’s eyes might be the “waiver” system in place. This waiver system basically gave companies the ability to opt out of the mandatory increase in the minimum annual benefit that they might have gotten around in the past. See, the way this new system was setup; a company had to increase this figure in increments over the next several years. Ah, but it was not totally mandatory because some companies could simply drop the workers (part-timers) altogether and avoid paying the increases.
Suddenly this plan does not look all that appetizing to lower income families, especially when you consider some of the companies that got the waivers to keep from having to pay the increase. Names like McDonalds and Jack-in-the-Box, who are not exactly high salary payers to begin with, now could simply hold the President hostage by saying, “Nice thought, but we will just dump all these folks instead of paying it”. Now those lower wage earners are looking at going back to no healthcare where once they thought there was hope.
They are not the only ones trying to take advantage of this loophole either. The Republicans and others are turning this into political capital to try and upset the apple cart in the upcoming elections. Many Democrats hoped that things would stay status quo up until November with no waves. Instead they now have to explain to constituents how a system that was suppose to work for them is now being used by their employers to help the company to save money while freezing them out of healthcare. So the system that was supposed to guarantee people that they would not lose coverage now all of the sudden was giving employers a way out of having to give coverage.
The best laid plans do not always go down as planned and this is one that might backfire on the President immensely. As the polls showed Democrats coming back against the Republican gains in those same surveys, now that positive momentum might be coming to a halt and reversing back in the other direction. It will be interesting to see what happens!