Bill Frist on Health Bill: I'd Vote For

Bill Frist on Health Bill: I'd Vote For It



Were he still in the Senate, "I would end up voting for it," he said. "As leader, I would take heat for it. ... That's what leadership is all about."

This is not to say that Frist is entirely happy with everything that is in the bill.

For one thing, he doesn't think it does nearly enough to bring costs under control. In his view, it does not fundamentally change the incentives that providers now have to provide more care, rather than better care. "There is really nothing to bend the cost curve," he says.

And Frist also predicts it will extend coverage to only 20 million or so additional Americans--far short of true universal coverage. Given the fiscal constraints, he says, he says a better approach would be to provide a more bare-bones package of benefits known as "catastrophic coverage" that would insure more people.

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