From an article by The Associated Press published Monday, January 11, 2010:
“… White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel acknowledged the doubts Monday. “A lot of people said, ‘Can you really control costs?'” he noted in an interview with MSNBC. The legislation will deliver lower costs, he asserted, while expanding coverage and providing consumers more rights. Obama wants to finish it by the time of his State of the Union address, not yet scheduled.
The Democratic legislation would, for the first time, require nearly all Americans to get health insurance. Medicaid would be expanded to pick up the near-poor, and middle-class households would get subsidies to help pay premiums.
Despite concerns raised by opponents, rationing was never really on the table. The four big ideas for slowing costs are: discouraging high-priced health insurance by taxing it; paying hospitals and doctors for quality care and coordination instead of sheer volume of procedures; aggressively seeking savings from Medicare; and restructuring the health insurance marketplace to make it more competitive…”
To read the full article, click here.
