The president wants to expand tax breaks for lower-income Americans who buy their own insurance and for those who purchase high-deductible policies and have health savings accounts, which are tax-free investments that can be used for health expenses. He also favors allowing small businesses in different states to band together to offer insurance to workers.
He is stepping up efforts to enroll uninsured children in government-paid health care programs, and also may seek again to alter the way the federal government pays its share of the Medicaid program for the poor. The president wants to give states broad new authority to cut or increase benefits and add or drop patients. States that choose to participate would get a pot of money to provide health care to some of their neediest residents and unprecedented discretion over how to spend it.
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