The Senate Finance Committee turns up its nose at proposals for a government-run healthcare plan
The U.S. Senate Finance Committee has once rejected calls by liberal democrats to add a government-run health insurance plan (the so-called “pubilc option”) to its healthcare bill. Committee chairman Max Baucus had earlier dismissed pleas to add a public option to the bill after conservative Republicans on the committee objected to the idea. And on Tuesday, the committee re-affirmed its aversion to a government plan, voting down a proposal by Sen. John D. Rockefeller to implement what he called Community Choice Health Plan by a vote of 17-8. A similar proposal by Sen. Charles E. Schumer is also expected to go down to defeat, though Schumer has suggested he would keep up the fight. “We are going to keep at this and at this and at this until we succeed, because we believe in it so strongly,” he said.