Health Care Reform

This article discusses the bill Obama signed in order to provide healthcare coverage to an estimated 30 million people who currently lack it. The bill would require most Americans to have health insurance, and add some 16 million people to Medicaid plans. This law will cost the government about $938 billion, but according to the Congressional Budget Office (which is acting as a legislative "shadow" in this case in order to decide how much legislation will cost and how much revenue it will generate) it will end up reducing the federal deficit by $138 billion. This relates to the legitimacy discussion we had in class. This type of government, making it mandatory for Americans to buy health insurance, could be rejected as illegitimate. This even relates to the common themes about legitimation, especially money and knowledge are key influences. Officials are saying that this reform of the healthcare system will ultimately lower our federal deficit.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html?scp=1&sq=Buy%20health%20insurance&st=cse

-Kelly Neary