If other countries are experiencing increasing costs in order to sustain hospitals and the health care system, then how much better could the United States do? Although the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, it is undergoing a $10 trillion debt and it doesn’t even have universal health care. The United States must adopt a health care system that can help the most people, not necessarily universal health care. Universal health care is just too expensive.

President-elect Obama makes a clear stand on healthcare: he wants to make it affordable for everyone. Perhaps President-elect Obama doesn’t promise universal coverage because it may cause greater strain on the government, which in turn will hurt the economy through higher taxes to sustain revenue. He has many ideas on how to provide affordable healthcare, but three very interesting aspects of his plan are to coordinate and integrate care for patients, increase competition among insurance companies, and guarantee eligibility.

To coordinate and integrate care for patients, the Obama-Biden plan supports providers to establish care management programs and promotes “team care” through setting up medical home type models similar to the coordinated care network system in Bobby Jindal’s health care plan. This would enable patients to get all their treatments at one location and encourage providers to coordinate their treatments more efficiently, especially for patients with chronic conditions.