http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/white-house-denies-report_n_475980.htmlAdministration officials with knowledge of current health care negotiations pushed back Wednesday evening against a report that the White House is readying a paired-down version of reform should the current proposal fail to win sufficient congressional support.
Hours before Thursday's much anticipated White House health care summit, the Wall Street Journal reported that the president and his team are "working on a more modest Plan B", just in case. This alternate approach would provide insurance to approximately 15 million uninsured Americans, or half as many as the current plan, and would include modest expansions of Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program -- all in all, a far cry from the current legislation under consideration.
The Journal reported that "no final decisions had been made" with regards to the Plan B approach. But one administration official who spoke to HuffPost insisted that while a fallback option had been developed, it is not even on the administration's radar.
"This proposal was developed because the president wanted to know what the impact would be if he had to go small post-Massachusetts
. It's not where we are," the official said.