Health care proposals coming

rdan

The Washington Post reports that:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) is circulating the outlines of sweeping health-care legislation that would require every American to have insurance and would mandate that employers contribute to workers’ coverage.

The plan in the summary document, provided by two Democrats who do not work for Kennedy, closely resembles extensive changes enacted in the senator’s home state three years ago.

In many respects it adopts the most liberal approaches to health reform being discussed in Washington. Kennedy, for example, embraces a proposal to create a government-sponsored insurance program to compete directly with existing private insurance plans, according to one senior adviser who was not authorized to talk to reporters.

The draft summary also calls for opening Medicaid to those whose incomes are 500 percent of the federal poverty level, or $110,250 a year for a family of four.

President Obama, meanwhile, is urging his most loyal supporters to reactivate the grass-roots machine that helped elect him and direct it toward health-care reform.

“If we don’t get it done this year, we’re not going to get it done,” he said yesterday in a call to members of Organizing for America, the political group formed to advance his agenda. “And to do that we’re going to need all of you to mobilize.”