Insurers' role key to health system overhaul, CBO says

President Obama's plan to overhaul the nation's healthcare system avoid one of the characteristics that felled Clinton-era reforms by maintaining an active and independent role for private insurance companies, congressional budget analysts said. In a report, the Congressional Budget Office said a government mandate requiring people to buy health insurance would not necessarily be considered a new form of federal taxation so long as people had a variety of private plans from which to choose and a government entity was not in charge of collecting their insurance premiums.