Health Care & Prescription Drugs News

Statement by Larry McNeely, Health Care Reform Advocate on Senate Majority Leader’s Inclusion of a Public Option in Senate Health Reform Legislation

WASHINGTON, October 26 - “The U.S. Public Interest Research Group applauds Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for his leadership on this politically challenging but vitally important element of health reform.  Not only has Senator Reid produced a proposal that will deliver improved choice and competition to consumers and small businesses in communities across the country; he has also assembled the coalition he’ll need to enact it.

“Only six percent of American communities meet the government’s market concentration standards for competition, according to the American Medical Association. That boils down to one thing – most American communities don’t have affordable health insurance choices.

“Under the Majority Leader’s plan, any state that lacks real health insurance competition or is tired of its insurers’ high prices and abusive market practices, can offer a national public plan to consumers and small businesses.

“Leadership from Senator Reid and Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Max Baucus (D-MT) has gotten us this far, with a public plan days away from the floor of the United States Senate. Now, we call on each and every Senator to stand and be counted on this vital national issue.”

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U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization. For more information visit http://www.uspirg.org.
For more on U.S. PIRG’s Making Health Care Work campaign, click here.

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