The revised bill coming from Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) still includes public option and employer mandates. In addition on Fox News Sunday yesterday House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) insisted “We think there’s going to be a public option. Yes, we think we need that.”
According to a New York Times/CBS News poll from late last month shows that
* 63 percent of Americans were concerned that their own health care would get worse under a government-run system of health care;
* 68 percent believed a government-run system would limit their access to treatments and quality care; and
* 53 percent were concerned they would have to give up their own doctor under a government-run system.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just spoke on the issue on the Senate floor:
“A government-run plan would force millions of Americans to give up the care they currently have and replace it with a system in which care is denied, delayed, and rationed. Instead of increasing access and quality, it could limit access and options. It could lead us into deeper debt and millions could well remain uninsured. Americans are skeptical about all of this. They don’t want to be forced to exchange the coverage they have for a government system they don’t particularly want. And some of the advocates of a government plan are beginning to sense this growing public opposition to their proposal. But, rather than make their case on the merits, they’re basing their arguments on the urgency of the moment. We keep hearing that time is running out, that the clock on reform is about to expire, that the entire health care system and the whole economy will soon collapse without this particular reform. Well, we’ve been down this road before. . .
Earlier this year we heard the same dire warnings about the stimulus. If Congress didn’t pass the stimulus, we were told, unemployment would continue to rise and the economy would continue to falter. We didn’t just have to pass it. We had to pass it right away. And the results are now coming in. Higher unemployment, soaring job losses, higher debt, huge deficits and growing fears about inflation. Many of us saw this coming. That’s why we proposed an alternative stimulus that wouldn’t add $1 trillion to the debt and would have gotten to the root cause of our economic problem, which is housing. And that’s why in the debate over health care, Republicans are proposing reforms that would make health care more accessible and less expensive, without destroying what people like about our health care system and without sending the nation deeper and deeper into debt.”