With so much recent debate from both sides surrounding President Obama’s healthcare bill featuring the polarizing public option, it’s easy to get confused – or lost in jargon. Among the mess, one thing’s certain — liberals and conservatives can agree that our country’s current healthcare policies need reform – and quickly. Health insurance is becoming unreasonably costly – even for America’s super rich –- and more employers are opting out of providing healthcare packages for workers. Something needs to change, for sure, but is President Obama’s current plan the right answer?

The pros to “Obamacare” – as it’s been dubbed – are clear. Every American would be required to have health insurance by a government-granted date. On the surface this seems to be a huge step in the right direction. If every American was somehow insured, strain on charity care and Medicaid greatly decrease. No longer would uninsured patients get slapped with astronomical hospital and prescription drug bills, which then ultimately are passed to taxpayers. Great.

That is, until you take a closer look and realize what Obamacare has plenty of holes. How exactly would every citizen get covered? What about preexisting conditions? Would disgruntled insurance companies provide sub par coverage – or worse – would healthcare providers provide sub par patient care? As a country, we hope not – but our new healthcare reform plan is so freshly minted, no one has a concrete idea of how it will ultimately unfold and work for Americans. A public healthcare option has been successful in other countries – and here’s hoping it will take hold and be successful here. Something needs to change for the better.

The bottom line is that this new public healthcare option poses so many varied positive and negative arguments, it’s impossible to tell what’s right. Unfortunately for the American public, only time, implementation and evaluation will give us the facts we all wish we had right now.