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The House Ways and Means Committee approved legislation early this morning to overhaul the nation’s health care system and expand insurance coverage. By a 23 to 18 vote, the committee backed key elements of President Obama’s blueprint for health care including the creation of a new government health plan and requirements for employers to offer health insurance to workers or contribute to its cost. To help fund the changes to the healthcare system, the House committee also agreed to a impose a surtax on families with incomes of more than $350,000 a year. Meanwhile the conservative American Medical Association has just come out in support of the House bill saying “the status quo is unacceptable”. Today we spend the hour with Howard Dean, physician, six-term Vermont governor, Democratic Presidential candidate in 2004, and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dean’s solution embraces President Obama’s healthcare plan but argues that the reform bill is “not worth passing unless the American people have the choice of signing up for a public option—a real public option.