Obama's backup health insurance regulations

I don't trust these guys at all. This doesn't sound half as bad as what was otherwise going to happen, but I have little doubt that it will still do lots of damage to the health care system.

His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning.

It would do that by requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents' health plans, and by modestly expanding two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, one person said. The cost to the federal government would be about one-fourth the price tag for the broader effort, which the White House has said would cost about $950 billion over 10 years. . . .

UPDATE: Well, Kathleen Sebelius denies that this is true.

Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, rejected reports Thursday that President Obama has a so-called Plan B for health-care reform.

"I don’t think there is a Plan B as far as I know, and I’m pretty involved in all these conversations," Sebelius said in an interview before the start of Obama's bipartisan health care summit. The secretary was addressing reports Thursday morning that Obama, depending on the summit outcome, is weighing alternative, more modest approaches to reform. . . .

Sebelius downplayed possible individual "concessions" from Republicans, and instead stressed the "comprehensive." . . .