Thursday, April 17, 2008

'Former Senators Aim to Reform Health System'

Story here.

Between them, they helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland, investigated the extent of steroid use in baseball, and instigated broad changes in veterans' health care.

Now, former Senate majority leaders Bob Dole, a Republican, and George Mitchell, a Democrat, may be facing their biggest challenge to date -- reforming the nation's health care system.

The two senators said Wednesday they would be joined by two other former Senate majority leaders, Democrat Tom Daschle and Republican Howard Baker, in crafting a series of health policy recommendations that would be delivered in 2009 to a new president and Congress.

There have been scores of recent efforts in Washington to investigate and fix the nation's health care woes. Yet the number of uninsured continues to grow, as does the cost of care. Lawmakers and President Bush disagree so much on how to stop those trends that little gets accomplished. Much the same happened under the Clinton presidency.

The four former majority leaders -- two Republicans and two Democrats -- are betting they can help lead a breakthrough. . . .

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