Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean traveled from the Upper Valley to the Seacoast yesterday.
At Manchester?s Elliot Hospital, Dean held a town hall meeting on his health care proposal.
New Hampshire Public Radio?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
Dean warned the crowd if anybody who wants wholesale health care reform, should keep looking for another candidate.
It?s not that he doesn?t want to overhaul the system, says the former Vermont Governor; it?s just that he wants something that can win approval from a skeptical Congress.
Dean believes he can provide health insurance to virtually everyone just by expanding existing programs.
One key element of the proposal relies on increasing federal funding to the state-run Children Health Insurance Program.
Track 10
1:47 here?s what happens under my plan. If you are under 25, you don?t have to worry about health insurance, that is dirt cheap... very inexpensive to insure young people. What you need is catastrophic care.
Dean?s plan would also offer coverage to the working poor.
For a family of four, that would be about $33,000 dollars a year.
As a way to encourage small businesses to offer health insurance, Dean would give employers tax credits.
He estimates his proposal would cost about 88 billion dollars a year.
He would pay for that by rescinding all of the tax cuts passed during the Bush Administration.
The upside, says Dean, isn?t only for the nation?s most needy.
Track 11
:19 suppose you make more than $55 thousand and aren?t eligible for these programs, how do you benefit...hte way you benefit is that you don?t have to pay, and your company doesn?t have to pay for other people?s health insurance anymore.
By one independent estimate, that change could reduce everyone?s health insurance premiums by about 20%.
Dean also told the crowd he is opposed to government involvement in the reproductive rights debate.
And he would support the study of medicinal marijuana.
For NHPR News, I?m DG.
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