Warren Buffet Endorses Senate's Health Care Reform Bill and Gives Obama High Marks for Rescuing US Economy

From Yahoo! News -- March 1, 2010:

NEW YORK, March 1 Reuters) – Warren Buffett said "out of control" health care costs are a "tapeworm" limiting growth in an economy recovering only fitfully from the financial crisis.

The world's second-richest person called on Washington policymakers to adopt fundamental reforms on such costs to address what he called a "national emergency."

He said health care eats up 17 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, at a time when many other countries pay only nine or 10 percent of GDP but have more doctors, nurses and hospital beds per capita.
"It's like a tapeworm eating at our economic body," Buffett said on CNBC television.

"If it was a choice today between Plan A, which is what we've got, or Plan B, which is the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill," he said. "But I would much rather see a Plan C that really attacks costs, and I think that's what the American public wants to see."

Rising costs, Buffett said, are holding back an economy that faced an "economic Pearl Harbor" in late 2008 when capital markets seized up.

While he said "we got past Pearl Harbor" and "we will win the war," he said the recovery remains slow, including in many businesses at his insurance and investment company Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Absent a major outside shock, "we will continue moving upward, but not at a very fast rate," he said.

Buffett gave U.S. President Barack Obama "high marks" for helping the country rebound. Yet he said improved conditions may not make stocks more attractive to investors.

"My enthusiasm for stocks is in direct proportion to how far they go down," he said. "Stocks are a lot less attractive now than they were a year ago."