Dean: Senate Health Care Compromise a "Positive Step" - "Real Reform" [View All]

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Dean: Senate Health Care Compromise a "Positive Step"
Posted by Daniel Carty



The new health care compromise hammered out among Senate Democrats isn't perfect but it represents a "positive step forward," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said on CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday.

Liberals appear ready to drop their demands for a public option in order to assuage moderate Democrats and get the 60 votes needed to avoid a Republican filibuster. The revamped legislation would reportedly set up a private insurance plan overseen by the same government agency that controls lawmakers' insurance. It would also expand Medicare, lowering the qualifying age from 65 to 55.

Dean, who previously chaired the Democratic National Committee, said Medicare expansion "makes a lot of sense because you don't have to reinvent another bureaucracy to do it."

"This is what should have been done in the first place," he told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez, who noted that Dean had insisted in August that reform must include a public option.

Dean said the compromise solution still represents "real reform."

"Whatever we call it is irrelevant. Is it going to work? Yes, it is."

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/09/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5948676.shtml