Obama: Healthcare bills not there yet

WASHINGTON, July 21 (UPI) -- Healthcare reform bills in the U.S. Congress aren't "where they need to be" in terms of cost savings or coverage, U.S. President Barack Obama said.

Obama, during an interview broadcast Tuesday on NBC's "Today Show," said healthcare reform proposals addressing the issues of skyrocketing costs and out-of-pocket expenses have been examined by congressional bean-counters and healthcare experts looking at the proposals' economic viability.

"And the Congressional Budget Office and every healthcare expert have looked at many of our proposals and they've said, 'You know, this has a good chance of working,'" Obama said. "Not all of them have been adopted by Congress yet."

In testimony on Capitol Hill last week, the CBO said plans circulating in the House and Senate likely would add considerably to the national debt and neither would cut healthcare spending.

"Right now, (healthcare proposals are) not where they need to be," the president said, adding that CBO has said "the cost savings that are in those bills, right now, some of them may actually work, but they're not enough to offset the additional costs of bringing in 46 million new people to provide coverage for."

Asked whether he'd support a House proposal that would assess a surtax on the richest U.S. taxpayers, Obama said, "What I've said is -- and I have stuck to this claim -- I don't want to see additional tax burdens on people making $250,000 a year or less."

Ultimately, he said, a package would emerge that likely would include additional revenue " from well- to-do people ... who can afford to pay a little bit more, so that working families -- people who are going to their jobs every single day -- can have a little more security on their healthcare."