So you want to be a healer? Let's take a look at healing in SWTOR.
There are 3 classes that can heal in SWTOR, each mirrored identically between the Republic and the Empire. These are Imperial Agent Operative for the Empire, which has identical skills and abilities as the Smuggler Scoundrel for the Republic, Bounty Hunter Mercenary which is mirrored by Trooper Commando and the Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer, mirrored by the Jedi Consular Sage. I'll use the Empire names because it makes my life easier, considering I currently mostly play on the Empire side, but everything is relevant for both factions. The only difference is the names of the classes and abilities and some of the visual effects. The gameplay and the abilities themselves are identical.
Like any other class and spec in SWTOR, healing is a perfectly valid leveling spec. The days of leveling as DPS with the intention to play a healer when you reach endgame are behind us. You like to heal? There is no reason for you to spend the entire leveling game specializing in something else, you can easily specialize in healing starting at level 10 when you pick your class specialization. I really like this decision, where there is no "best leveling spec", you can pick whatever you like and it's a perfectly valid and enjoyable choice.
The healing classes themselves all feel unique and fun, they each have to consider resource management and get unique abilities and mechanic to be able to keep healing in long fights. They each have abilities to keep the tank up as well as the rest of the party and they each have cc abilities and abilities to help them stay out of trouble like shields, stuns, pushing away enemies and reducing agro. I played all 3 healers about 2/3 of the leveling game and read every available online information about them and I still can't tell you which is the most enjoyable one. There is also no "best choice" they are all well balanced and even if the calculations will prove this or that class is 2% better, Bioware constantly make sure they are balanced. So you can pick the class that seems the most fun to you, you can't go wrong with any of them.
Some specific class strength I've seen so far:
Bounty Hunter Mercenary: He has the strongest AOE dps abilities and gets them very early. Making him very efficient in fighting multiple mobs while questing, or helping the party drop multiple targets when healing is not too intensive.
A Mercenary healing spec that I recommend is: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300rfRMR0cdkqZrcoZb.1
You can move a point to Heat Dumping for better ability to avoid situations where you have agro if you find it useful.
Imperial Agent Operative: He can sneak and have the best stuns and abilities to get away from a fight or avoid damage. Giving him the ability to easily get to the objective and avoid unnecessary confrontations, as well as get away when a fight goes wrong. His cheap hots and aoe hot making the Operative very good at constantly keeping multiple target heals on a group.
An Operative healing spec I recommend is: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#401rffbzGoRzsZ0cZG.1
Precision Instruments is there to help you avoid damage, you can spend these 2 points anywhere else if you prefer, it doesn't directly effect healing. There are also 2 free points that you can use to take any talent you like, there's no other "must have" healing abilities.
Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer: He has very strong single target heals, coupling that with the fact he gets a companion that is arguably the best tanking companion very early in the game, means he's the best suited to fight strong enemies early on. When the Sorcerer concentrate on keeping a tank alive it's very hard to take him down.
A Sorcerer spec I recommend is: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201GGrRbd0dGzZf00MZ0M.1
There's 1 point left you can put anywhere. Also I've skipped Dark Resilience and Fadeout, as I don't think consumption is an ability you'll use a lot without Force Surge proc and the usage of Static Barrier speed increase is very situational. If you want these you can easily take 2 talent points from "Empty Body" which I only picked to advance the tree.
I plan to eventually write a detailed post about each of these classes, this post just generally describing the healing game and the options you have. Bioware did a great job balancing them and making them all unique and fun to play. All of them can quest well, all of them can heal a Flashpoint. So if you want to play a healer, you can't go wrong with any of them, just pick the one that seems most enjoyable to you.
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