A pair of congressmen are gathering support for the Senate to reconsider its stance on public health insurance program, citing its popularity – both in the U.S. Senate and among American people – as well as its key to health care savings.

Chellie Pingree

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) urge the Senate to use budget reconciliation to pass a comprehensive health reform bill that includes the public option.

Through the parliamentary measure, the Senate would need only 51 votes to pass the legislation, rather than the full 60 votes the chamber would need to pass a health reform bill as is. The measure, which essentially ties votes to budget issues and is filibuster-proof, has been opposed by some Senate Democrats, including Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln and Indiana’s Evan Bayh, in order to push reform past Republican opposition.

Pingree and Polis are circulating a letter among their House colleagues urging the Senate to pass the public option through the reconciliation process, according to a statement.

The House already included the mechanism to compete with private insurers, but the Senate did not, instead choosing to expand Medicare to secure the necessary votes to ensures approval of its legislation.

In a statement, Pingree called the inclusion of a public option “essential to health care reform.

“We have learned in Maine what happens when massive insurance companies have a lock on health care coverage,” she said. “Without choice and competition, we face higher prices and end up with insurance companies calling the shots on important health care decisions.”

Popularity pitch

In the letter to Reid, Pingree and Polis cite the popularity of the public option, noting its support in a New York Times December 2009 poll showing that 59% of Americans support the measure and in support voiced in the Senate during last year’s negotiations.

“It is very likely that the public option could have passed the Senate, if brought up under majority-vote ‘budget reconciliation’ rules,” the pair wrote. “The public option would clearly qualify as budget-related under reconciliation, and with the majority support it has garnered in the Senate, it should be included in any healthcare reform legislation that moves under reconciliation.”

The pair also cited the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that a public option will save taxpayer between $25 billion and $110 billion and “billions more when private insurers compete to bring down premium costs.

“This is about leveling the playing field,” Pingree said.  “It would give consumers more choice and the insurance companies a little competition. Plus, it’s what the American public wants.”

The Maine Democrat added, “with all the noise” in the health care debate, “the need for real reform that benefits the public has been lost.

“We need to be sure that families have real choice in selecting their insurer and that quality health care is affordable to all,” she said. “The public option provides the reform we need.”