According to a Washington Post report, President Obama is slated to earmark $500 billion for health care and health insurance reform in next year's stimulus package. There are a few specific programs which have been mentioned as being included:



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, the plan that allows unemployed workers to continue with their previous employer's health insurance plan is a popular plan, but costly to the employees, since the employer usually paid a portion of their coverage under a group health plan. U.S. Representative Pete Stark is calling for an expansion of COBRA including a provision that provides subsities to help the unemployed pay for the plan.

MEDICAID The Federal health coverage program for low income Americans is scheduled to receive up to $40 billion in the next two years as part of the Obama stimulus plan.

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 will actually be included in the package is of course still up for debate.