Sherrod Brown: "I'd Have Trouble Voting For" Health Care Bill Without Public Plan

One of the leading progressives in the United States Senate left the impression on Friday afternoon that he would oppose major health care reform if it did not include a public option for insurance coverage.

Speaking outside the White House following a meeting with President Barack Obama, Sen. Sherrod Brown would not go so far as to draw a line in the sand in terms of what legislation he could or could not support. But he made no secrets of where his sympathies and objections lie.

"I would have trouble voting for it without that," he said of a bill without a public plan. "I would have difficulty supporting any health care plan that doesn't keep the insurance companies honest. I appreciate now the... progress that we have made already that the insurance companies are wiling to accept real rules on preexisting conditions, on how we do community ratings, on all of those issues. But he doesn't think and I don't think that's enough. He thinks, as I do, that if you have some kind of public option, it could look like Medicare, it could be something different, some kind of option to keep the insurance industries honest..."

To date, most progressive figures in Congress have followed the president's lead in insisting that all options for health care reform are currently on the table. Part of the strategy, a congressional aide said, is to avoid having to roll back declarative statements. The White House could end up calculating that dropping a public plan is the only way to get legislation passed, after which Democratic lawmakers would feel the acute pressure to follow suit.

That said, outside government, progressive health care reform advocates are growing impatient, watching as congressional Republicans declare their full intention to oppose a public plan and wondering when and from where the political pushback will come. Earlier this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she didn't think Obama would have the votes to get a bill without a public option through Congress. That was a start. Brown's build upon that.

But, earlier on Friday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the president would not sign a bill "with nothing that even remotely resembles a public option."

"I don't think at this point we would draw quite that strong a red line," Gibbs responded. "But again, I think the President believes both in the campaign and in the letter that he sent sometime last week, when we were in Europe, but denoted that he thought it was extremely important to have, as I've said here, increased choice and competition. I think he believes that can be -- no pun intended -- a healthy part of a final plan."

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Comments

[truegreen]

Good for Sherrod. i support any democrat who would vote against a HCR bill w/out the public option. the public plan must be an option---period. Obama needs to start cracking the whip on the conservative dem's in his party.

[tompoe]

Sherrod Brown is now a card-carrying member of the Twit Brigade. He refuses to vote single payer healthcare, which his constituents want, and instead, grovels in the sewage of corporate thugs.

[kassandrasduplex]

Watch Michael Moore's Sicko so you can be educated about the catastrophe that is American healthcare. He advocates a single pay national health. What we have coming is fascism.

[discourse jockey]

Watched the youtube clip you linked somewhere below, and love DK even more now than I already did before. He's a true "people's lobbyist" (and he's had mafia assassination plots against him for daring to actually work for the public's interests before). We, the people are not good enough to elect a guy like that our president, that is the bleak truth.

[Billl]

Public insurance spent on private health delivery systems won't produce the needed cost savings.

A common sense blunt fix for health care.

1. Set up a civilian, VA style, public health care system for delivering all government funded health care and medications free to everyone choosing to use it, no restrictions, rich, and poor, Medicare, Medicaid, etc everybody who wants public care has it free, all services, all medications, free period.
2. Pay for it with a national sales tax.
3. Let private insurers and care providers compete for everyone who wants private care, unfettered by government mandates, dictating who must be served, at what level, for what price, and totally unregulated but for safety.
4. Businesses that choose public care for their employees will have no financial obligations or any other responsibilities concerning health care.

(The Best Care Anywhere by Phillip http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.longman.htmlman.html

Dispensing health care efficiently, and collecting the money to pay for it cheaply, that's the purpose of the exercise, and no one can compete with the government at these two tasks.

An OMB study of this dual solution for health care reform compared to any other would show we could save hundreds of billions of dollars annually, while eliminating financial hardships for individuals and businesses using public care.

[kassandrasduplex]

Have you noticed that this article was buried and not "front page"? Have you noticed that the media have promulgated the false private plan- "public " plan meme? Missing from the news coverage are the words "single payer national health". What we are getting is fascism, the government mandating that the citizens give their money to private corporations. The "public plan" is a scam. We are actually witnessing the neo-conservatives wet dream come true, the final destruction of the New Deal Great Society visions of the long gone progressive leaders when America was still a republic. Hello Third World, here we come.
There will be no redistributive progressive healthcare reform.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMtN-S0KA3k

[dexxjones]

if the public option isnt included, i will finally declare obama done. this is a crucial point and there IS no middle ground where that aspect is concerned.

that said, i do have faith that obama will end up getting it included. if not, i will walk away from the democratic party or once and for all and i will not be the only one. the only conclusion will HAVE to be that the corporations got to him.

[tsuh]

Before declaring there is no middle ground on a "public option" please answer the following questions:

Why is the government trying to enact another enormous government run health care option like Medicare and Medicaid when they are so inefficient and corrupt they are going bankrupt?

Answer: Because President Obama and most of the Democrats want power and and the best way to get power is to take over health care so they can better control every aspect of our lives and could care less about the Nation going bankrupt.

What happens if President Obama gets his way and imposes a government run health care option that restricts reimbursement much like Medicare and Medicaid?

Answer: With "no skin in the game" aka profit a lot of health care professional will just quit and there won't me enough left to meet all the demands of a government run system . Bottom line you'll get your "public option" and not enough doctors to treat you.

How much will a government run program cost and how is it going to be paid for?

Answer: At least 1.5 trillion which will be paid for with Higher debt and higher taxes which will further hurt an already bad economy and make everyone poorer.

How will the decisions on health cuts be made?

Answer, Rationing of health care and political favoritism.

[kassandrasduplex]

Medicare Medicaid aren't going bankrupt because they are "inefficient and corrupt". They are going bankrupt because of the venal Medicare Part D (which resulted in drug prices doubling or tripling overnight) and Medicaid being the last resort for the nation's worst most expensive medical cases that no private insurance company will take and who would not survive otherwise.
Medicaid and the VA are the closest thing we have to most European nations' single payer systems that consistently rank superior to our own, both in cost and quality of care provided. Your argument is false.

[dexxjones]

answer? talking points which have been debunked over and over. thats the only response your comments warrant. i cant even say nice try, but i can say "aint buyin"

[tsuh]

A government run health care system would put the government in charge of who gets what health care if any. It will raise the deficit and raise taxes in economic hard times which will further hurt the economy.
The proposals now on the table for a so called "public insurance option" call for keeping costs down by denying care based on one's "worth" to society. That translates into denying care to the elderly and making decisions on who gets what health care on political grounds, ie. aids treatment may be on a higher politically correct scale than lymphoma.

With the government in charge, the government will have the power to decide if you get that operation you need or not and even if they ok it, you may have to wait months to get it. Assuming there are any doctors left to provide the care. After all with no "skin in the game" aka "profit" a lot of physicians may well just quit instead of working for peanuts.

UNDER A GOVERNMENT RUN PROGRAM EVERYONE WILL HAVE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE BUT ONLY THOSE WHO ARE DEEMED BY THE GOVERNMENT AS OF "WORTH TO SOCIETY" OR HAS A POLITICALLY CORRECT AILMENT WILL GET THE CARE!!!

So who are the "heartless and greedy ones"? I say the ones who would deny care to the elderly and are for taking food out of the mouths of other peoples children in order to pay for their health care and bad life style decisions.

[discourse jockey]

Your comment makes no sense at all.

The US have had by far the most expensive health system in the entire world for decades.

On top of that, the current system is also the most unjust in the developed world, and --needless to say-- the most ludicrously inefficient health care system ever devised.

Virtually ANY change from the current system that exploits all taxpayers would mean a huge improvement.

The filthy greed of Big Pharma and the insurance industry must be curbed with hard rules. They are the ones cheating their clients out of coverage with every dirty trick in the book.

[treetracker]

You've been listening to too many GOP talking points. Frank Lutz's fear words "government takeover"...BS.

Who do you think makes those decisions know? Your INSURANCE COMPANY! How many have been denied a liver or kidney transplant on the grounds that it is a medically unproven operation? Give me a break!

There are thousands of doctors who are demanding a public or single payer health care system. Doctors who are in the profession who CARE about their patients, not profits for insurance companies. How many of them now receive reduced payments from insurance companies? Every single one of them. So do hospitals. And where does that profit go? Into the pockets of the CEO's of the insurance execs. They sure as heck don't pay it to their employees!

My daughter just had surgery - first she had to fight the exclusion in her policy for any heart related disease - her's was a birth defect - after they approved the surgery BEFORE she had it. The bills were over $100K. And every single bill they paid was reduced by the carrier.

Get a clue - go read something besides something written by those who want to protect their campaign coffers.

[kassandrasduplex]

We already have the most expensive system in the world and rank 37th in quality of care. That is the result of a purely profit-driven private model. The so-called "public plan" being promoted for all intents and purposes is an HMO with premiums and co-pays. AMERICANS CANNOT AFFORD THEIR HEALTHCARE NOW! How is this so-caled "pulic plan" going to make that better? Watch this and see how you are all being duped. It is not about the public plan but gives you an idea of what is at stake for the most powerful venal players...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMtN-S0KA3k

[dexxjones]

sorry. i dont want corporate pinheads making healthcare decisions (as they are now) put that in your talkingpoints cruncher and crunch it. :)