Gregg Expects Health Overhaul, Like It Or Not

Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire figures some sort of health overhaul is inevitable. He just doesn't know if he'll like it.

"I'm presuming something will pass," Gregg tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer in an interview for Friday's Morning Edition. The president has invested his "status on public policy" in getting legislation through, Gregg explains, "and he has supermajorities in the House and the Senate" to get the job done.

But Gregg, who's not running for reelection, says he's a little worried the plans advancing already are "very far on the liberal side of the agenda" and would eventually lead to a system with the government as the primary insurer.

 

He goes on to say there are plenty of other solid, alternative proposals out there and that he's all for constructive changes. The goals for any plan should be to "insure the uninsured, reduce the out-year costs and rate of growth of health care, and, if you like your health care you should be able to keep it."

That sounds an awful lot like President Obama, Wertheimer points out.

"They are President Obama's goals," Gregg answers, adding, "the only problem is the two plans he has endorsed so far ... don't do any of those things."

For more of Gregg's views on health, see his recent op-ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader.