Obama offers compromises to get health care bill passed
By Margaret Talev, David Lightman and William Douglas
McClatchy Newspapers
September 10, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Wednesday laid out a series of compromises he's willing to make to get a health care overhaul through a nervous Congress this year, including diluting his vision for a new public insurance program and embracing ideas floated by Republicans.
In a rare evening address to a joint session of Congress, Obama tried to seize control of the Democratic Party's highest domestic priority after months of party disarray and raucous public debate across the country. The president said that he'd require all individuals to have health insurance and would provide tax credits to people and small businesses that couldn't afford it.
On perhaps the most controversial single plank in his program, Obama endorsed creating a "public option" government program to compete against private insurers, but he didn't insist that it be included.
Instead, he left room for alternatives that liberal Democrats in Congress are resisting. Those include creating nonprofit health care co-operatives; a "trigger" mechanism for a public option to kick in later if private insurers fail to meet benchmarks of coverage; or perhaps simply tightening regulations on private insurers.
He asked "progressives" to remember that before debate over the public option erupted, their central goals had been to make coverage more affordable and to better regulate insurers. "The public option is only a means to that end and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal," he said.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/75130.html
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