Sen. Dodd: Health Care Reform Must Include Public Option

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Senator Dodd is a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and authored an op-ed published in the New London Day on the critical importance of health care reform.

In it, Sen. Dodd uses the overwhelming turnout at each of his four CT Prescriptions for Change events -- in particular, the first, which was held early on a cold Friday morning in January -- as evidence of the tremendous will to see real health care reform enacted. (Video from all four forums is available on the CCAG site: East Hartford, Danbury, New London, and Derby).

Sen. Dodd continues by describing the scope and severity of the health care crisis:

Health care costs are rising faster than our economy is growing, crushing family budgets and businesses alike. Already Americans spend 18 cents of every dollar on health care. If we continue down this path, that figure will double by 2040. This week, we learned that 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies were caused by medical problems. And today, nearly half of all home foreclosures are attributable, in part, to financial issues stemming from medical costs.

We've clearly reached a tipping point. Today, some 46 million Americans are without health insurance - including more than 322,000 in Connecticut; millions more have insurance that costs too much and covers too little. Meanwhile, premiums and out-of-pocket costs for individuals and families alike continue to skyrocket. Here in Connecticut, they're up 42 percent over the last eight years alone.

That's not only unacceptable - it's completely unsustainable.

The most significant line in this op-ed, however, is Sen. Dodd's statement of unequivocal support for a public option (emphasis added):

For me, the bottom line is that we need to preserve the ability for people to choose their own doctors, hospitals, and insurance plans. If you like what you have, you can keep it; if you don't, you'll finally have affordable options available to you. In my view, that must include a public health insurance option in addition to private options.

It seems that Sen. Dodd has become more fully convinced of the merits of the public health option, though he has liked the idea for awhile.

More information about the public health option is available at the Health Care for America Now! website, and over at CT Local Politics, Saramerica offers another take on Sen. Dodd's op-ed.