With Barack Obama’s presidential victory, many wonder whether his proposed health care reform will effectively change our present system—and if so, how extensive will those changes be and when will they take place?

Obama’s health care reform will:

•    Require employers, except small businesses, to provide health insurance to their employees or contribute to the cost
•    Mandate that all children have health insurance
•    Expand Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
•    Create a National Health Insurance Exchange to pool risk and offer people the choice of competitive private or public health plans

Obama claims that these changes will lower the average household’s health care premiums by $2,500 per year. He plans to pay for the reforms by increasing the taxes of families who earn more than $250,000 annually and keeping the estate tax at 2009 levels.

The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan tax analysis group, believes that if Obama’s plan is fully implemented it could decrease the number of uninsured Americans from 67 million to 33 million. The cost would total $1.6 trillion over a decade.  

Learn more about the future president’s plan here.