President Barack Obama sought to reinvigorate a long-stalled debate on reforming health care in the United States, today proposing a series of new measures, including government oversight of insurance premiums, dpa reported. Obama released proposals on the White House website that the administration argued "bridges the gap" between differing versions of health legislation that were passed by the Senate and House of Representatives towards the end of last year. A key element of the president's plan included creating a new government oversight authority with the power to block health insurance firms from raising their premiums to "unreasonable" rates. Obama hopes to restart the debate in earnest with a health care "summit" at the White House on Thursday with lawmakers from his ruling Democratic Party and opposition Republicans. The goal of the reform legislation has been to extend health care to about 30 million uninsured Americans and lower costs in the world's most expensive system. Opponents criticized the measures as government overreach, and the controversial bill was derailed last month by a Republican Senate election victory in Massachusetts, which gave opposition conservatives enough votes to block the legislation.
