Feb 28, 2011

Obama tells states they can submit their own health care plans

12:41 PM

President Obama told Republican state governors today that they can offer alternatives to his federal health care plan as soon as 2014, so long as they meet the new requirements for covering the uninsured.

The state plans could include alternatives to the Obama law's requirement that all Americans have to buy health insurance, a provision under challenge in federal court.

"If you have a better way of doing it, help yourself," Obama told a group of Republican and Democratic governors at the White House.

The law Obama signed last year allows states to submit their own plans, but not until 2017; Obama's proposal would allow state alternative plans in 2014.

Obama essentially endorsed an approach backed by a bipartisan trio of senators: Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

Under the plan, states could opt out of the federal health care package if they could prove that other methods would enable them to cover as many people.

States with Republican governors -- some of whom were in the White House audience today -- are involved in lawsuits to overturn the law in its entirety.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... re-plans/1