Spitzer promises healthcare changes

Taking on the political fight of his life, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer blamed the powerful healthcare industry and the Legislature it “co-opted” for wasting billions of dollars a year on “our broken healthcare system.” Spitzer then promised to reform the system with lawmakers and the health lobby, or without them. Spitzer said he would freeze Medicaid funding to hospitals and nursing homes where it is wasted, but wo’t cut benefits to individuals. He also promised to use some of the billions of dollars in savings he targeted as waste and fraud to cover more uninsured New Yorkers and to improve all healthcare. -- by the Associated Press