Nancy-Ann DeParle: Congress “Very Much On Track”

Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, predicted in an interview with Kaiser Health News that a comprehensive health care reform bill would reach President Obama by Thanksgiving, and that she hasn't given "a moment's thought" to accepting a scaled-back package.

She said the congressional committees with jurisdiction over health care are "all very much on a track to do exactly what the president has asked them to do and to mark up bills that are very similar to the plan he articulated during the campaign." Asked whether the president would sign a bill that relied mainly on new taxes to pay for an overhaul, she replied, "No." She added, "I believe the bill will be fully financed, evenly divided between savings in Medicare and Medicaid and some other sources of revenue, such as the ones he's identified" (Appleby, 6/1).