Protecting your teenager with the right car insurance is really important—as is covering you and your spouse with life insurance and buying long-term care insurance to provide for your parents’ needs as they age.

But the overriding concern of many American families today is health insurance.

Barack Obama will be inaugurated today, so while we’re on the subject, now is a good time to review the stance he took on our health care system before he was elected to office.

The American economy changed drastically during the two years Obama was campaigning. Because of this, some of his more aggressive ideas will probably have to wait—just like his plan to roll back the tax cut for the wealthy.

Over 45 million Americans, including eight million children, don’t have health insurance. Eighty percent of those uninsured are actually part of working families—those with jobs that don’t provide adequate health insurance coverage.

But insurance for families is vitally important to our country’s future, so Obama says he plans to change all that.

He has many ideas on the topic. One of his more controversial statements was that he’d like to prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of health or age. He would also mandate insurance for children and require employers to cover their workers with health insurance—or pay a payroll tax to help subsidize government coverage for the uninsured.

He’s also interested in improving the technology used in medical recording keeping, providing subsidies for low-income people, and making insurance plans portable from one job to the next.

How quickly he can carry ideas like these out—if at all—remains to be seen.

Tags: family insurance, insurance for families