Public Option, Health Care Bill | featured news

Obama urges Senate Dem to pass bill; Lieberman signals support if buy-in plan is dropped.

44 | President calls Senate plan "a creative new framework" to provide coverage to uninsured without relying on government insurance option.

Two centrist senators, Ben Nelson and Joseph I. Lieberman, said that they were opposed the bill as it is currently written, particularly its inclusion of a new government-run insurance program.

What's all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats' push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, ...

Support of government-backed insurance plan is a key concession to liberals, but the Senate provision would also give states the right to opt out.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has told colleagues that he may include a government-run health insurance plan in a health care bill he will soon take to the Senate floor.

Their plan is estimated below Obama's $900-billion price tag. House Democrats are aiming to scale back the cost of their healthcare bill below President Obama's price tag by giving the government a strong hand in selling insurance in competition with the private market.

As Democratic congressional leaders and White House officials work to shape health care bills that will go to the House and Senate floors, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and now wins clear majority support from the public.

Measures pending in Congress push insurers to keep down costs and cover all regardless of health. Despite growing frustration with the way health insurers deny medical treatments, major healthcare bills pending in Congress would give patients little new power to challenge those sometimes life-and-death decisions.