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Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege

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Author Topic: Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege  (Read 4718 times)
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Denielle
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« Reply #45 on: July 06, 2009, 03:23:33 pm »

Sam Stein
stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

Schumer: With Franken Seated No Need To Compromise On Public Option


First Posted: 07- 6-09 11:55 AM | Updated: 07- 6-09 12:23 PM



One of the leading Senate Democrats in the health care reform battle said that the seating of Al Franken has given the party the purpose and direction it needs to ensure that a public option for insurance coverage remains in any bill.
"If you did a consensus within the Democratic Party, you would find the level-playing-field public option to be the answer," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "And now that we have 60 votes, it seems to me like we don't have to turn it inside out for something we don't like."
In an interview with the Huffington Post conducted over the July 4 weekend, Schumer offered a detailed and frank assessment of the political landscape of the current health care debate. Predicting that the final bill will include a public plan, he painted the Republican Party as rigid to a fault when it comes to negotiations.
"This is where we are going to end up," he said of a health care overhaul that included a public plan. "And I think, it would be much better for the Senate Finance Committee if we did it in the committee... I think the Senate HELP committee compromised already, because you have a lot of members on the HELP committee who would've liked [the public option] to be much closer to Medicare. The idea seems to be catching everybody's imagination, and sense of fairness. And the only holdouts are sort of ideologues on the Republican side of this saying no government involvement whatsoever."
At this juncture, Schumer added, there were potentially nonnegotiable divides between the proposals offered by the few moderate Republicans and the sentiments of the vast majority of the Democratic Party. This included the notion of having a public option with triggers, which because it would require that certain economic conditions be met before the government plan became operational, is seen as a possible compromise approach.
"My bottom-line criteria is that it has to be strong, national, and available to everyone on day one, to keep the insurance companies honest and I'm not sure we can get there," Schumer said. "I've been talking to [Sen.] Olympia [Snowe] about this," he added, referring to the trigger option's main proponent in the Senate, "but I'm not sure we can bridge that gap."
Similarly critical remarks were offered for the idea of replacing a public plan with health care co-ops, which Schumer described as insufficient and unpractical.
"[Sen. Chuck] Grassley hasn't closed the door, but it seems in general that his model of co-op is little co-ops popping up like they do in farm country," he said. "And the model that we are saying we need is they have to be strong, national and available everywhere from the first day. And I think we are very far apart on this."
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