House Democrats Unveil Plan for Health Care Overhaul
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/house-democrats-unveil-plan-for-health-care-overhaul/?hpBy David M. Herszenhorn AND Robert Pear
House Democrats on Friday answered President Obama’s call for a sweeping overhaul of the health care system by putting forward a 852-page draft bill that would require all Americans to obtain health insurance, force employers to provide benefits or help pay for them, and create a new public insurance program to compete with private insurers — a move that Republicans will bitterly oppose.
The bill was unveiled by a trio of committee chairman, George Miller of Education and Labor, Henry Waxman of Energy and Commerce, and Charles B. Rangel of Ways and Means, who have worked jointly for months to develop a seamless proposal. But the chairmen said they still did not know how much the plan would cost, even as they pledged to pay for it by cutting Medicare spending and imposing new, unspecified taxes.