health insurance

Now And Then: Health Care

(TBO.com) - This is an abridged version of a story that appeared in The Tampa Tribune’s Sept. 23, 1993, editions, when President Bill Clinton introduced his health care reform package. Because of congressional battles, the plan remained in limbo and ultimately went nowhere. In March 1995, the Government Accounting Office estimated the Clinton administration spent about $10 million without reforming health care.

WASHINGTON - Proposing a top-to-bottom makeover of the nation’s health care system, President Clinton called Wednesday night for ambitious reforms guaranteeing every American comprehensive medical benefits “that can never be taken away.”

Clinton, in a speech to a nationally broadcast session of Congress, said his plan would reform “the costliest and most wasteful health care system on Earth without any new broad-based taxes.”

“This health care system of ours is badly broken, and it is time to fix it,” Clinton said.

Laying out his rationale for the biggest social initiative since the New Deal, Clinton said the current system is “too uncertain and too expensive, too bureaucratic and too wasteful. It has too much fraud and too much greed.”

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