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- THE WEEK, Page 17NATIONIf You Can't Lick 'Em ...
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- Now even the insurance industry is pushing a national health-care
- plan
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- It was a classic application of the advice "If you can't lick
- 'em, join 'em." Recognizing that with Bill Clinton's victory,
- the momentum toward national health-care reform is becoming
- unstoppable -- and that insurance companies are widely regarded
- as an iniquitous special interest fighting on the wrong side --
- the Health Insurance Association of America reversed its
- long-standing opposition and brought forth its own plan.
- Features: through a combination of (unspecified) tax incentives
- and penalties, the government would require that a standard
- package of benefits be made available to everybody, including
- the 35 million Americans who have no coverage now. The feds
- would help define that package and eventually force
- standardization of amounts paid by private insurers, Medicare
- and Medicaid; to help pay the cost, workers would be taxed on
- above-standard benefits provided by employers. George Stepha
- nopolous, Clinton's communications director, hailed the
- reversal as a "real breakthrough."
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