Posted Nov. 5, 2008 – What will health care look like under an Obama administration? Lots of promises were made during the campaign. While a health proposal is being crafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) based on President Elect Barack Obama’s proposals, there’s no guarantee that in the end all that was promised will be fulfilled. However, looking back, you get a glimpse of what candidate Obama said he’d like to see changed and how those changes could affect you:

• Require all children to have health insurance.
  
• Through comprehensive health reform efforts, would ensure that Medicaid and the state offered-federally supported child health insurance plan known as SCHIP continue to serve as a critical safety net for families. Further, he supports expanding eligibility for Medicaid and SCHIP to include more middle-class families.
  
• Additionally, Obama would require that essential clinical preventive services, such as cancer screenings and smoking cessation programs, be covered under Medicaid and SCHIP.
  
• Require employers to offer employee health benefits or contribute to the cost of the new public program.
  
• Require large employers to offer coverage or contribute toward the costs of coverage; provide tax credits to small employers that provide coverage to their employees.
  
• Provide subsidies based on a person’s income to help individuals buy qualified insurance.
  
• Create a National Health Insurance Exchange through which individuals could purchase a public plan or qualified private insurance plans; require participating insurers to offer coverage on a guaranteed issue basis and charge a fair and stable premium that is not rated on the basis of health status.
  
• Proposes the creation of a National HIV/AIDS Strategy to decrease new HIV infections and improve health outcomes for Americans living with HIV/AIDS.
  
• Supports expanding Medicaid coverage to more low-income people living with HIV/AIDS and supports the Ryan White Program.
  
• Would focus on eliminating disparities in the impact of HIV/AIDS, particularly in minority communities.
  
• Supports comprehensive sex education, expanding access to HIV testing, increasing federal funding for science-based HIV prevention programs, and federal funding for needle-exchange to prevent the spread of HIV.
  
• Would work to give seniors and people with disabilities choices about their care, consistent with their needs, and not biased towards institutional care.
  
• Would work to reform the financing of long-term care to protect seniors and families from impoverishment and debt.
  
• Would allow re-importation of prescription drugs from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are lower outside the U.S.
  
• Supports policies to prohibit brand drug manufacturers from keeping generics off of the market.
  
• Would allow the government to negotiate prices of prescription drugs for Medicare Part D and for people enrolled in a new public insurance plan to be established under the Obama health plan.
  
• Would work to reduce unintended pregnancy by guaranteeing equity in contraceptive coverage, providing sex education, increasing funding for Title X, and offering rape victims accurate information about emergency contraception.
  
• Would make preserving a women's right to choose under Roe v. Wade a priority and would oppose any constitutional amendment to overturn that decision.
  
• Supports comprehensive sex education programs that teaches about abstinence and contraception.