Courtesy of Campaign for America's Future

Table of Contents:

1. Liberal senators tout public health insurance
2. Caucuses Unite Behind Public Health Insurance Plan Option
3. Congress adopts budget plan endorsing Obama goals
4. SEIU: Health care ad 'unfit to air'
5. Media infected with conservatives' "socialized medicine" myth

 1. Liberal senators tout public health insurance
By Jeffrey Young
The Hill
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A new public insurance plan is an essential part of reforming the U.S. healthcare system, 16 Democratic senators declared in a letter to two powerful committee chairmen Wednesday. 

The letter was addressed to the two senators expected to shape healthcare reform legislation; Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
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Read the letter here 

2. Caucuses Unite Behind Public Health Insurance Plan Option
The Congressional Progressive Caucus
Click for source By Andrew Taylor
The Associated Press
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In an unprecedented initiative, the leaders of four prominent groups in the 111th Congress – the Progressive Caucus (CPC), the Black Caucus (CBC), the Hispanic Caucus (CHC), and the Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) – have sent a joint letters to President Obama and the Democratic Leadership of the House and Senate stressing that ‘our support for enacting legislation this year to guarantee affordable health care for all firmly hinges on the inclusion of a robust public health insurance plan like Medicare.’
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Read the letter to the House leadership

Read the letter to the President 

3. Congress adopts budget plan endorsing Obama goals 

Democrats in Congress capped President Barack Obama's 100th day in office by advancing a $3.4 trillion federal budget for next year — a third of it borrowed — that prevents Republicans from blocking his proposed trillion-dollar expansion of government-provided health care over the next decade.
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4. SEIU: Health care ad 'unfit to air'
By Carrie Budoff Brown
Politico
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The Service Employees International Union has asked CNN and Fox News to pull a health care commercial by the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, describing it as “unfit to air.”

The union has also started an e-mail campaign targeting Fox to “stop the swift-boating of health care.”
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5. Media infected with conservatives' "socialized medicine" myth
By Eric Boehlert
Media Matters for America
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In recent days, numerous media figures have claimed or suggested that President Obama has proposed -- or that his health care plan will lead to -- "socialized medicine," a "single-payer" system, a "single-payer government-run system," or "nationalized health care" like the British or Canadian models. However, Obama has not proposed a single-payer or a nationalized health care system and has explicitly rejected the idea that the United States should adopt the British or Canadian models of providing health care. As PolitiFact.com noted in a March 4 post, "Obama's plan leaves in place the private health care system, but seeks to expand it to the uninsured" and "the plan is very different from some European-style health systems where the government owns health clinics and employs doctors."
Read more here 

Additional Resources:
Public Health Insurance Resource Page

Jacob Hacker: "Healthy Competition: How to Structure Public Health Insurance Plan Choice to Ensure Risk-Sharing, Cost Control, and Quality Improvement" (PDF)
• Jacob Hacker: "The Case For Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform: Key to Cost Control and Quality Coverage" (PDF)
• Diane Archer: "Near Universal Coverage, But No Cost Controls or Guarantee of Quality, Affordable Health Care for All" (PDF)
• Frank Clemente: "A Public Health Insurance Plan: Reducing Costs and Improving Quality" (PDF)
• The Commonwealth Fund: The Path to a High Performance U.S. Health System: A 2020 Vision and the Policies to Pave the Way
• Leaders and Experts Agree that a Public Insurance Option is Critical to the Success of Obama’s Health Reform Proposals (PDF