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Mandates For Health Insurance Likely To Be Part Of New Plan

Posted on: Friday, 27 March 2009, 14:26 CDT

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Thursday admitted that mandates to purchase health insurance are likely to be “part of the plan” to revamp the US healthcare system.

House committees are currently drafting new legislation with the goal of keeping rising costs under control and effectively provide coverage for some 46 million Americans who currently have no health insurance.

President Barack Obama has offered up a plan that would provide a federal insurance plan to anyone, while continuing to allow commercial insurers to offer their own private plans.

Obama told a health care forum in Washington this month that his plan “gives consumers more choices, and it helps keep the private sector honest because there’s some competition out there.”

Critics of President Obama’s plan say that government intervention will eventually “push out the private insurers, leaving the government option as the only option,” according to the New York Times.

The insurance industry wants a mandate for Americans to purchase private coverage because it would help insurers lower the price of premiums, thus making it more affordable for the sick.

According to Reuters, during the democratic presidential nominee election in 2008, Mr. Obama said he was against a federal mandate for health insurance. His rival, Hillary Clinton, who now sits as Obama’s secretary of state, was for a mandate.

Hoyer refused to give too many details as to how a public plan would work, stating that Democratic leaders “believe that a public option clearly is going to be necessary.”

But many Republicans disagree.

“There’s a lot of us that feel that the public option, that the government is an unfair competitor,” said Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa.

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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