Does Specter support a public health insurance option?

In a May 8th letter to Health Care for America Now (HCAN), Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter conveyed his endorsement of HCAN's eight principles for national health care reform.

But the letter itself expressed reservations about two of those principles: a public health insurance plan and the use of the government's high-volume purchasing power to drive down the cost of prescription drugs.

Specter has long been a Senate leader on health-related issues, especially in his role earlier this decade as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with responsibility for health-related funding. There he championed the National Institutes of Health and other medical researchers.

Will he show the same enthusiasm for controlling medical costs and industry profits? That is the question everyone is asking now that he has joined the Democratic majority in the Senate.

The so-called public plan option would be a government-administered health insurance, similar to what is currently available to federal employees. Many advocates for health reform, including President Obama, support making such a plan available to the public. This would create an alternative for people who are fed up with private health insurance practices. And because publicly-run plans generally have lower administrative costs, it would create badly-needed fiscal discipline in a market where costs have been rising much faster than in other sectors of the economy.

But the private health insurance industry perceives a public plan option as unfair competition and is mounting strong opposition.

In his May 8th letter, Specter stated: I look forward to discussing and considering (a public health insurance plan). A starting point could be the proposal made by Senator Schumer earlier this week which seeks to maintain a level playing field between the private sector and any public plan."