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The Latest Positive Sign for Health Care (Or Is It?)

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Monday, March 23, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) told The Associated Press Friday that health care reform, possibly including near universal coverage, will happen this year.

“It will not be a perfect bill, it will not be a complete answer,” said the stalwart Wyoming conservative. “But it will get a lot done. It may well even get the goal of having every American insured done.”

Enzi’s comments matter because he is a member of the so-called Board of Directors, a bipartisan group of senators who are taking the lead in the Senate’s main legislative vehicle for overhauling the nation’s health care system.

The question is whether Enzi’s remarks are another sign of good faith negotiation or a kinder, gentler version of persistent Republican demands that Obama drop a centerpiece of his plan: the creation of a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Obama sees a public plan as key to covering 47 million uninsured Americans by making affordable health insurance available to those who don’t qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP and don’t have insurance through work, and to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees. Opponents see it as a stalking horse for a single-payer plan.

Enzi seemed to reject the idea of a public plan earlier this month when he signed on to a letter to Obama from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to Obama saying it would “create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition.”

Now Enzi is hedging. ”I’m not ruling out a public plan,” he  told The Associated Press, “but I am thinking about a public plan as a backup so that people can get insurance.”

Enzi’s new position sounds promising, but it all depends on the definition of “backup.” If the public plan isn’t widely available or affordable, Obama’s goal of “comprehensive” health care reform won’t merit the adjective.

Categories & Tags: Congress| Health Care| | |

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[...] The Latest Positive Sign for Health Care (Or Is It?) – The Washington Independent.comSen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) told The Associated Press Friday that health care reform, possibly including near universal coverage, will happen this year. “It will not be a perfect bill, it will not be a complete answer,” said the stalwart Wyoming [...]

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Pingback posted March 29, 2009 @ 7:31 pm

[...] The Latest Positive Sign for Health Care (Or Is It?) – The Washington Independent.comSen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) told The Associated Press Friday that health care reform, possibly including near universal coverage, will happen this year. “It will not be a perfect bill, it will not be a complete answer,” said the stalwart Wyoming [...]

Health Insurance Affordable - Obama Healthcare Plan To Provide ‘Affordable Options’ - KIRO-TV « Health Insurance Affordable
Pingback posted March 30, 2009 @ 12:20 am

[...] The Latest Positive Sign for Health Care (Or Is It?) – The Washington Independent.comSen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) told The Associated Press Friday that health care reform, possibly including near universal coverage, will happen this year. “It will not be a perfect bill, it will not be a complete answer,” said the stalwart Wyoming [...]

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