As the debate over national health care reform rages on in Congress, U.S. Representative Tim Bishop of Southampton is voicing support for a strong public health insurance option aimed at reducing the power insurance companies have over health care costs.

The option proposed in America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, the legislation spearheaded by President Barack Obama, calls for the creation of a public insurance plan that would compete with private health insurance companies in the hopes of controlling rising premiums, Mr. Bishop said. The plan would be managed by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and would pay rates comparable to Medicare, he said.

“The public option would not be supported by taxpayer money. It would have to be supported by premiums, just the way private plans are supported, and it would compete on a level playing field with the private plans,” said Mr. Bishop, a Democrat. “So this is not socialized medicine. This is not the nationalization of health care. This is simply having another option available provided by the federal government for families and individuals to choose from.”

As of Tuesday, the details of the bill were still being ironed out by lawmakers in the House and Senate, and versions of it were under consideration in the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.

Mr. Bishop said the House will not vote on the bill before its summer recess on July 31. Last week, Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, announced that the Senate would also not vote on the legislation before its recess on August 7.

The current version of the House bill seeks to spread health care coverage to the uninsured by expanding Medicaid and Medicare at a cost of an estimated $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, Mr. Bishop said. The House’s bill would also impose a mandate for Americans to have health insurance, and require small businesses with payroll exceeding $250,000 to offer health insurance to their employees or pay a fine, the Congressman said.

To help pay for the expansion of Medicaid and Medicare, the bill would impose a tax on individuals earning more than $280,000 a year and on couples making more than $350,000 a year. The tax, ranging from 1 to 5.4 percent depending on annual income, would raise nearly $600 billion over 10 years, Mr. Bishop said. The fine on businesses and individuals who don’t obtain coverage would also contribute about $200 billion to expanded government insurance programs, according to a report by the House Ways and Means Committee.

In the 1st Congressional District, which Mr. Bishop represents and which encompasses most of Suffolk County, there are about 83,000 uninsured people, 67,000 of whom would gain access to health care under the House bill, according to a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Nationwide, about 40 million of the estimated 47 million uninsured people in America would be able to receive health coverage with the reforms.

“One thing that we should all be able to agree on is that the status quo is simply unacceptable,” Mr. Bishop said. “If 14,000 Americans a day lose their health insurance, there is not a reasonable person alive that can think that is affordable. I certainly can’t.”

Republicans have objected to the health care plan citing fears that it will cost too much and that the public option will leverage unfair competition against private insurance companies. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recently criticized the House Democrats’ public health care plan for taking what he said is a step towards socialized medicine.

“The Democrats’ priorities for health care reform are now clear: a government-run system financed on the 
backs of Americans and small businesses with higher taxes,” Mr. Steele said in a prepared statement. “The Democrats’ government-run plan won’t reduce health care costs, it won’t allow Americans to keep their insurance or doctors and it won’t promote competition. But it will result in a government takeover where bureaucrats determine what health care treatments 
Americans receive, if they can receive them at all.”

Mr. Bishop countered by complaining that the Republican Party has not presented any alternatives of their own. “They do not have a single suggestion for how we reform a system that everybody quickly agrees is very badly broken,” he said.

The Congressman also argued that a public option would “keep the private plans honest” and help “bend the curve” as health care costs increase. He said the public option would expand patients’ choice of doctors, not limit it.

“Premiums increase every year. They have increased dramatically over the last five to 10 years,” Mr. Bishop said. “Perhaps, with the public plan that the private plans would have to be competing with, they would not be so quick to raise premiums.”