Obama Plan for Government Insurance Draws Criticism
08.01.09
Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to
have new government health insurance compete with private
coverage drew Republican fire at a nomination hearing for Thomas
A. Daschle to run the Health and Human Services Department.
“Any new insurance coverage must be delivered through
private insurance plans,” said Senator Michael B. Enzi ,
Republican of Wyoming and his party’s ranking member on the
Health committee, in prepared comments for the hearing, the
panel’s first session of the year.
Enzi was taking on a proposal by Obama to help reduce the
number of uninsured by making available a version of Medicare,
the government insurance for the elderly. Daschle preached the
need for consensus in his remarks, telling lawmakers he was
“determined to work with each of you” to change a system that
costs $2.6 trillion a year and leaves 45 million people without
health insurance.
“We need input and involvement and engagement,” Daschle
told Enzi in response to a question about moving health-care
changes through Congress. Daschle didn’t offer specifics of the
Obama plan, or argue for its passage.
Source: Bloomberg