Published 18 August 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3385
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3385

News

Obama tries to defuse anger over healthcare reforms

Janice Hopkins Tanne

1 New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The US president, Barack Obama, spent last week trying to quell furious protests over his proposed healthcare reforms. This included speaking at town hall meetings in the western states of Montana and Colorado.

The president and his secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, are apparently backing down from insisting on a "public option" plan that would compete with private, profit making health insurance plans. Instead a non-profit cooperative organisation offering plans might be on the cards.

The president set out the benefits of the reforms in a New York Times article in which he said that the current system often worked better for health insurance companies than for patients (www.nytimes.com, 16 Aug, "Why we need health care reform").

About 46 million Americans have no health insurance. But about 80% do, and they fear that the proposals will take away what they have. Many people do not . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

The Promise Of Health Through The Transfer Of Wealth
Dr. Herbert H. Nehrlich
bmj.com, 20 Aug 2009 [Full text]
Conservatives and Liberals
Hugh Mann
bmj.com, 21 Aug 2009 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ