Buffett to Obama: Scrap Current Bill and Start Over

Kathryn Nix / March 01, 2010

Last week’s bipartisan summit on health care reform seems to have done little, if anything, to build support for the President’s vision of health care reform.  Strong opposition to the Democrats’ proposals remains the position of a majority of Americans.  And now, even the President’s biggest fans are following suit.

In an interview‘ with CNBC, Warren Buffett, a Democrat and supporter of President Obama, advised the President to follow the wishes of the American people to scrap the current health care legislation and start over.  Buffett highlighted the failure of Democrats’ proposals to address cost as his biggest concern:

We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control…And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else.

But concerning the current proposals before Congress, Buffett lamented that, “unfortunately, we came up with a bill that really doesn’t attack the cost situation that much.” Buffet’s concerns have been certified by the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who have reported that the Senate health care bill would raise national health expenditures by $234 billion by 2019. (more…)