Thread: Daschle, Dole, Mitchell Push Healthcare Compromise

Daschle, Dole, Mitchell Push Healthcare Compromise
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 3:25 AM

WASHINGTON -- Trying to prevent a repeat of the 1990s standoff over healthcare, four former Senate leaders are preparing a plan that combines ideas from both political parties to guarantee coverage for all.

Democrats Tom Daschle and George Mitchell are set to join Republicans Bob Dole and Howard Baker on Wednesday to release a $1.2 trillion proposal that would be fully paid for with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

A summary of the plan calls for an individual requirement to carry health insurance, an idea that many Republicans support. But it would also impose new levies on large companies that don't provide coverage to their workers, an approach preferred by Democrats.

Perhaps the most controversial part calls for taxing health insurance benefits worth more than the value of the coverage that members of Congress get.

Republicans have supported such an approach, arguing it would encourage people to switch to less expensive insurance plans, and that might cut overall costs in the long run. But unions, a major Democratic constituency, are adamantly opposed.

On another hot issue, the proposal would leave it up to the states to create publicly sponsored insurance plans that would compete with private insurers.

The four former leaders acknowledged they don't have to answer to voters or worry about interest groups any longer. But they said healthcare is too important an issue to get dragged down again by partisan political warfare.

The last major effort to revamp the healthcare system to guarantee coverage and control costs ended in frustration 15 years ago, when President Bill Clinton's plan failed to win support in Congress.

http://www.newsmax.com/us/bipartisan_he ... 25993.html


Please go to the source below to activate links given:

New Report from the Leaders' Project on the State of American Health Care

"Crossing Our Lines: Working Together to Reform the U.S. Health System"

Join Howard Baker, Tom Daschle and Bob Dole as they unveil their bipartisan plan for comprehensive health reform

Learn more here
Download the report here
Download the summary here

http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/
(Bipartisan Policy Center)

Has anyone heard how small companies that employ illegal immigrants will be forced to contribute to this plan? Will they still get medical care if they refuse to buy insurance? Will this stop Mexicans from dropping babies at U.S hospitals?
Don't bet on it...... legal taxpayers will get screwed out of money and coverage so all the poor, illegal job thieves will have quality healthcare.

Its got to be a real mess if it has anything to do with Tom Daschle. Americans dont want a government run health care plan. And we dont want to provide healthcare for illegal aliens.