For next year, President-elect Barack Obama is already planning on a massive economic stimulus package.
According to the Washington Post, the package could top $500 billion.
Large investments in health care and health insurance reform will be a part of the stimulus package, with a few major financial-assistance health care programs getting a significant funding boost.
Here are the programs in question:
SCHIP
The successful State’s Children’s Health Insurance Program will likely play a big role in the upcoming health reform plan. SCHIP has been widely regarded as a very successful, but costly, program to get children the health insurance they need. Already Congress has supported the expansion of SCHIP to include more children, and it looks like it will happen under Obama.
COBRA
U.S. Representative Pete Stark from California is calling for an expansion of COBRA, which allows unemployed people to continue their previous employer’s group health insurance coverage. But because COBRA coverage is expensive, Congressman Stark proposes providing subsidies to help the unemployed pay for the plan.
Medicaid
The Medicaid program for low-income Americans will receive up to $40 billion in the next two years as part of the stimulus.
In addition to these programs, the stimulus package will likely include some $10 billion as a down payment to help doctors, hospitals, and other health care facilities to implement electronic medical records and streamline offices with computers, wrote the Post article.
What is actually included in the package is still plenty up for debate.