Public Option Redux

Proposed legislation adding a public option to the health care legislation enacted earlier this year was introduced July 21, sponsored by Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

HR 5808, introduced with 128 co-sponsors, would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to begin offering affordable health benefits as a public option as part of health care exchanges beginning in 2014. Co-sponsors include, among others, California Representatives Anna Eshoo, George Miller, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, and Henry Waxman, as well as Barney Frank of Massachusetts, and Alan Grayson of Florida.

The bill calls for offering at least three tiers of plans, “including a low-cost plan without compromising quality.”

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

It’s about time.

Buckdata, written by Shelley Buck from California's coastal mountains, provides occasional progressive commentary on the world in 2011. Shelley Buck is the author of Floating Point, a travel memoir about moving to a boat in the San Francisco Bay to reduce an awful commute to Silicon Valley.