Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut on Tuesday became the latest prominent Democrat to push back against President Barack Obama’s apparent newfound flexibility on the need to implement a public insurance option as part of comprehensive health care reform.
Dodd, who managed the markup of a health care reform bill in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, released a statement emphasizing the importance of enacting a public option. Dodd, the No. 2 Democrat on HELP, has run the committee in the absence of Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
“At this historic moment, faced with an urgent crisis in our health care system but blessed with an unprecedented opportunity to fix it, we cannot let politics as usual prevent us from delivering on the promise of change,” Dodd said.