Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel on Universal Health Care - White House OMB

[slipslidingaway]

Our new health care system???

This interview is from April 2007

http://www.pbs.org/now/news/315.html

"...I think the universal part appeals to the Democrats. The voucher part appeals to Republicans. And I think it should make us one big happy family," Dr. Emanuel tells David Brancaccio in a web-exclusive interview.


...DR. EMANUEL: Absolutely. I think—I think—some of the biggest supporters of this plan will be businesses. They want—their employees to have insurance, but the costs are becoming too high, too astronomical for them.

So they would get out of the game entirely. And I think that's a good thing. One of the benefits for employees would be they would probably see their wages go up. 'Cause, right now, employers—are playing whatever it is, ten, 15 percent, of—of their labor cost to health insurance. That money would be, if the economists are right, transferred as increases in wages...

...DR. EMANUEL: Right. Well, if the states aren't paying Medicaid anymore, and employers aren't paying for insurance, we would have to find the money to pay for this. We wouldn't add more money, but we'd—you'd have to get basically—recoup somehow how employers are paying for it and how the states are paying for Medicaid. And that would be—we've proposed to finance this by a value added tax. That means that, when you buy something, the added value is taxed. The tax would be about eight to ten of purchases—if you eliminate food and some other items that—poor people disproportionately buy. And, again—it—you're going to have to pay for this somehow. It is going to be a tax...


...Right now in America there are about 1,300 health insurance companies. Many of them very small niche players. They cater to very small companies, but they add a lot of administrative costs —in the sense of they've got a different billing system. And so people have to keep up with that. In our plan, we would estimate that we would cut that down to about 50 or 60 plans throughout the country..."


Rahm Emanuel’s Brother Joins White House Team

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/12/18/rahm-emanuels-brother-joins-white-house-team/

"Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a prominent bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health–and the brother of incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel–will serve as a senior counselor at the White House Office of Management and Budget on health policy, two Democratic officials said Thursday.

Zeke Emanuel will work closely with Department of Health and Human Services secretary-nominee Tom Daschle to formulate a national health insurance program and to try to curb the swelling cost of health insurance without adversely impacting health care..."